Figma Slides, Google Slides, PowerPoint or Keynote: where should your deck live?
Build the deck in the tool the people updating it already use. Overslide designs in Figma Slides, Google Slides, Keynote and PowerPoint, and delivers in whichever format the team needs. Max Marele prefers Figma Slides: typography displays accurately, every brand font works, and he builds faster in it.
Short answer
Use the one your team will actually edit
I’ll deliver in whatever format you prefer or need. The deck has to survive the next six months of your team editing it, and that matters more than which app I enjoy.
If you’re asking what I’d pick? Figma Slides. Every time.
Figma Slides
Figma Slides: my default
Typography displays the way it was designed, and every brand font works. I’m also just faster in it, and it’s more reliable: auto-layout and components mean a change made once is a change everywhere, instead of forty slides nudged by hand.
Comments and edits are multiplayer, if you need them. And the output can be anything: PowerPoint, PDF, images. One thing worth knowing if PowerPoint is where the deck ends up: a font PowerPoint doesn’t have gets swapped for its default, and gradients turn into solid fills.
Google Slides
Google Slides: fine, within limits
It only works with Google Fonts. If your brand already uses one, no problem at all.
Where it runs out is diagrams and charts. Anything properly designed usually gets built somewhere else and imported as an image, which means nobody edits it in Slides afterwards. Comments and edits are multiplayer.
PowerPoint
PowerPoint: it works, it’s clunky
It’s just clunky to build in, and the font rendering is odd. Type rarely sits the way it does everywhere else.
Co-editing works when the file lives in OneDrive or SharePoint. If your company runs on Microsoft, that’s probably where your deck should live too, and I’ll build it there.
Keynote
Keynote: good, and it renders well
Keynote is good, and the rendering engine is good. Real-time editing and comments go through iCloud.
Bottom line
Tell me who edits it after me
That’s the question that picks the tool. Tell me where the deck has to end up and who’s going to open it next, and I’ll build it so that works. Want a head start in either? There’s a free template for Google Slides and Figma. More on the work itself: pitch decks, sales decks and pricing.
Questions
Which tools does Overslide design in?
Overslide designs in Figma Slides, Google Slides, Keynote or PowerPoint, whichever the client's team already uses. Max prefers to build in Figma where the client can work that way, because it gives more design control. The trade-offs are laid out in Figma Slides vs Google Slides vs PowerPoint.
Will my team be able to edit the deck afterwards?
Yes, the team can edit the deck afterwards. Decks are built in the tool the team already works in, so the files stay editable in-house after handover.
Can Overslide deliver the deck in a different tool or format?
Overslide delivers the deck in whichever format the team needs: Figma Slides, Google Slides, Keynote, PowerPoint or PDF. The format is agreed on the 30-minute call, and the file stays editable in-house after handover.
Can Overslide work with our existing brand or build us a reusable template?
Yes. Deck and Story are designed in the client’s existing brand. A reusable template is a System: templates, a slide library and a handover the team builds its own decks from.
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