Canva vs PowerPoint (2024) — Which is the Better Presentation Maker?

Hey all, it's Jonathan Pollard from Style Factory, the go-to site for business app reviews. In this Canva versus PowerPoint shootout, I'm going to compare a cloud-based app that promises to make graphic design easy for everyone, Canva, against Microsoft's industry-standard presentation maker, PowerPoint. I'll highlight key reasons you might prefer Canva and areas where PowerPoint excels. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments — we read them all and will do our best to help.

Key Differences Between Canva and PowerPoint

Although Canva and PowerPoint can both be used to create attractive presentations, the two tools are quite different in nature. PowerPoint is specifically designed for presentations, while Canva is a multi-purpose tool that lets you create a wide range of visual assets, including social media posts, simple videos, slides, posters, and even websites.

Another significant difference is connectivity: Canva works only online because all your designs are saved in the cloud, whereas PowerPoint can be used offline via the desktop and mobile versions.

Since this is a Canva vs. PowerPoint comparison, let's focus on their capabilities for creating presentations.

Reasons to Use Canva

1. Canva is Much Easier to Use

Designed for design novices, Canva emphasizes ease of use. Editing templates, accessing visual assets, and sharing presentations are all incredibly simple. The drag-and-drop editor in Canva is particularly user-friendly compared to PowerPoint, making resizing and moving visual components a breeze.

2. Canva Offers a Larger Range of Visual Assets

Visual assets like videos, photos, and clip-art can bring a presentation to life. Canva is more generous than PowerPoint in this regard, offering millions of assets compared to PowerPoint's thousands. Canva also provides a library of audio clips.

3. Video Integration is Easier in Canva

While both Canva and PowerPoint let you add video to presentations, Canva’s options for manipulating video content are more extensive. Canva includes a video editor, which, though not as robust as Adobe Premiere Pro, is very usable for creating simple videos to include in your presentations.

4. Better Brand Management Features

Canva allows you to work with brand kits to specify brand colors, fonts, and logos. These can be applied to anything designed on the platform, ensuring consistency across all team-created presentations. PowerPoint offers reusable templates but lacks similar brand management features.

5. More Templates

Microsoft PowerPoint offers around 70 templates, whereas Canva boasts over 29,000 ready-made presentation templates. Canva's templates are more varied and contemporary, featuring a wider range of typefaces and more individual slide types.

Reasons to Use PowerPoint

1. Better Integration with Microsoft Apps

If your company relies heavily on Microsoft 365, then PowerPoint is a better fit as it integrates well with other Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, and SharePoint.

2. More Output Options

PowerPoint lets you output your presentations in a wider range of formats, including high-quality photographic or video formats.

3. Superior for Math Presentations

PowerPoint has an "Equations" feature that makes it easy to insert and edit equations, making it ideal for educational presentations in math and science.

4. More Sophisticated Graphs

PowerPoint provides around 60 chart designs (each with variants) for creating graphs and charts, compared to Canva’s 20. Using Microsoft Excel as the data source allows for more sophisticated number crunching before graphing.

Conclusion

Those are our key reasons to choose Canva for creating presentations, along with the areas where PowerPoint has the edge. If you’re interested in trying either platform, check out the links to free trials in the video description. Note that some of these are affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you purchase through them.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments — we read all of them and will do our best to help.

Keywords

Canva
PowerPoint
Presentation Maker
Visual Assets
Templates
Brand Management
Video Editor
Microsoft 365
Graphs
Equations

FAQ

Q: Can I use Canva offline? A: No, Canva is a cloud-based service and requires an internet connection to work.

Q: Which platform offers more visual asset choices? A: Canva offers millions of visual assets compared to PowerPoint's thousands.

Q: Is Canva's video editor comparable to professional tools like Adobe Premiere Pro? A: No, Canva's video editor is simpler but good enough for basic video editing tasks within presentations.

Q: Does PowerPoint integrate with other Microsoft apps? A: Yes, PowerPoint integrates seamlessly with Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and SharePoint.

Q: Can I create complex mathematical equations in Canva? A: PowerPoint is more suited for this, offering an "Equations" feature for inserting and editing complex mathematical equations.