Powtoon To Mp4
Productivity
If you are having difficulty in exporting your Powtoon to an MP4 file, it may be due to heavy content in the Powtoon. In such a case, our Customer Support Team.
Pros
Enables nonexperts to easily make animated videos. A welcome alternative to slide decks. Good interface and tools for adding custom images and voice-overs.Cons
Expensive. Limited collaboration features. Heavy reliance on templates may make videos formulaic. No snapping guidelines for aligning, centering. Must first export to embed and reupload any time the presentation changes.Bottom Line
With PowToon, anyone can make video animations instead of drab slide decks to use for presentations, training, and more. You don't have to be an expert in video editing, but you do need deep pockets.
Have you declared the slide deck dead? Are you desperate for a tool that can steer you toward the same end goal of any great presentation app, but without all the tiresome slides? PowToon is an online app that anyone can use to make animated videos instead of slideshows. It's designed so that nonexperts in video creation can master it, relying heavily on templates to get the job done. PowToon is an interesting productivity app, but among unconventional alternatives to slideshow software, Prezi is PCMag's Editors' Choice. Prezi changes the way you can think about your material before you even present it, whereas PowToon sticks to a more linear fashion, even if your final product is technically an animated video rather than a slideshow. Prezi is also much less expensive.
Among the more traditional slideshow tools, PCMag recommends Editors' Choices Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote.
Pricing and Plans
You can use PowToon for free with some tight restrictions, or pay for a membership to have those restrictions removed and a few perks added. With a free account, any presentations you make will be watermarked with a PowToon logo and contain an advertisement for PowToon at the end. That's reason enough not to use the free version for anything other than getting a basic feel for PowToon. Free members also have a limited selection of royalty-free music, images, and themes to use. They don't get HD resolution or the ability to export to an MP4 file, which paid users get. Free users get only 100MB of storage space, and their videos can only be five minutes long.
The paid options are called Pro and Business. The Pro account costs $228 per year or a very steep monthly price of $89. Between the tight restrictions on the free account and the steep monthly price, PowToon really makes it hard to give the app a serious try before you commit.
The Pro plan includes 2GB of storage, HD resolution for your final products, collaboration tools, and the ability to download files to MP4, PPT, and PDF formats. Videos can be up to 15 minutes long.
The Business plan starts at $708 per year or $197 per month for one user, and organizations looking to add multiple seats can contact PowToon for a price quote. Business members get 10GB of space, as well as both HD (720p) and full HD (1080p) resolution for videos. Your presentations can be longer, too: 60 minutes for HD and 8 minutes for full HD. There are a few other differences as well between Business and Pro. For example, Business can create videos for commercial and marketing use. They also get the full selection of styles (similar to themes) and royalty-free music.
PowToon ends up being one of the most expensive tools for creating presentations. Even Prezi, which is also rather expensive, costs less at just $59.04 per year (yes, it's an odd price) for its Enjoy plan. A Prezi Pro account costs $159 per year, and a Pro Plus account runs $240 per year. Even the monthly plans are more reasonable than PowToon's, at $10, $20, and $30. At that price, you can reasonably try the tool for a month without spending too much upfront. Plus, Prezi gives you a free 14 days with the Enjoy plan to kick the tires a bit.
PowerPoint, the biggest player in the presentation space, costs $69.99 per year when you buy a Personal subscription to Microsoft Office. For that price, you get much more than just PowerPoint, though. You also get Word, Excel, Outlook, Publisher, and Access. That's six apps for about a third of the cost of PowToon Pro. Keep in mind that PowToon and PowerPoint have rather different approaches to slideshow creation, although PowerPoint is equipped with plenty of animations, effects, and the ability to export to MP4.
Apple's Keynote is the other well-known presentation and slideshow software, and it has the lowest sticker price: $19.99. Furthermore, it's typically included when you purchase a new Apple computer or tablet. So, while it's not technically 'free,' a lot of people end up not having to pay extra for it. Additionally, the online version of Keynote that's available on iCloud.com is free to use by anyone who has an iCloud account. Keynote was part of Apple's former office suite, iWork. There's no single product called iWork any more, although you can buy all the apps that used to a part of it under the name Bundle for iWork.
Google Slides is also free to anyone with a Google account. Again, it won't start you out with a templated video animation, the way PowToon does, but it has plenty of neat features of its own. For example, Google Slides has an option for presenters to generate a URL on demand where audience members can submit questions while watching a presentation. The presenter gets the questions in real time, which is one of the more interactive features I've seen in any presentation app. Note that while it's available separately, Google Slides is also one component of Google Docs (or the business-grade G Suite), in the same way that PowerPoint is part of Microsoft Office.
Getting Started and Learning PowToon
I first tried PowToon's limited free version to get a sense of the app. I found it easy enough to pick a template, preview it, and begin customizing it with my own content. But I quickly hit roadblocks. The objects I could add to my animated presentation were quite limited, and the PowToon watermark on each scene took up valuable screen real estate. While the free account gave me a sense of PowToon, it wasn't enough to get me hooked on it.
Next I tried the Business tier, and I immediately saw marked improvements. The team set me up with the new Storyboard interface, which is rolling out to users now.
To start making a video, you first choose a look: professional, whiteboard, infographic, cartoon, or corporate. Next the app presents you with a storyboard, or a series of scenes (think of each scene like a slide). You then give your storyboard a structure, which loosely fall into three categories: work, personal, and education. The structure is basically a template. For example, under the work category, you can choose Company Guidelines, Explainer Video, Meeting Related, and so forth.
A Training and Tutorial structure brings up six scenes that create an outline guiding you as to what might be in such a video. Scene one is your introduction. In scene two, you define your scope. Scene three is where you illustrate the benefit of the training. In scene five, you're supposed to add specifics. Scene five is a call to action. And scene six is your outro.
On the one hand, the heavily templated experience guides you toward creating succinct and meaningful videos. On the other hand, it's very formulaic, which is the opposite of what most people want when they're sick and tired of slide decks. On the balance, it's probably better to have guidelines and stick to them for your first videos, unless you really know what you're doing.
Next, you pick a template for each scene, which means rather than having one set template across the whole video, you can mix and match along the way.
If the word 'template' puts you at ease because it means someone else is doing the heavy lifting, you can skip the whole storyboarding process and instead select a ready-made template for any number of situations. When you take this route, PowToon gives you a template for the whole video in one shot, rather than asking you to pick a template for each scene.
Whether you choose a full template or decide to use the storyboard method, the next step is to add your content to each scene. The scenes have sample content in them, again guiding you toward a formula for presenting your material. For example, in one of the Call to Action scenes, the sample content says, 'Read more about implementing these tips here.' You're meant to replace that with your own text.
You can swap in not only your own words but also your own images, as appropriate. You can upload your own pictures or pull from a library of images provided by PowToon. PowToon also lets you search for Creative Commons pictures as well as stock images that might come with an additional royalty fee. PowToon makes it easy to add music from a library, too, or to use your own. You can also record or upload a voice-over track.
The editor for customizing your video is easy to use, and tutorial content appears the first time you try it. I didn't have any trouble moving objects around the screen, adjusting text formatting, sending objects backward or forward to layer them, and so forth. I turned on a grid to better adjust the placement of objects but was disheartened not to have access to snapping guides for centering and aligning. Any time special effects are an option, however, there's a preview of each one so know exactly what you're choosing, which is very helpful.
How To Convert Powtoon To Mp4
It's important to note that with both PowerPoint and Keynote, you can also include animations and even export your presentations to a video format, MP4 and QuickTime, respectively. The real difference is that PowToon pushes you toward animation from the get-go, whereas one might argue that the templates and general design of both PowerPoint and Keynote encourage static slides filled with bullet points, graphs, and the like.
Collaboration
PowToon has very limited collaboration capabilities compared with other presentation apps, and what it does offer is only in beta at the moment. Both you and your collaborator (singular) need Business-grade accounts to use it.
Collaboration here simply means the ability to make a copy of your presentation and send it to another user so that it shows up in his or her list of videos upon logging into the app. The other person can then work on the file and send it back to you, again by making a copy of the file that will show up in your list of presentations when you log into PowToon. It's a far cry from the real-time collaboration and saved history of changes you get with Prezi, Google Slides, and other apps.
In Google Slides, collaborating works the same way it does for any other Google Docs or G Suite app that supports it. When you share a file with other teammates, everyone can see and edit the same file simultaneously. A color-coded cursor appears on screen, showing you exactly who is making changes as they occur. Commenting tools and a chat box are also included to support discussion. The ease of collaborating in Google Slides is one of the service's biggest perks. You don't have to worry about recipients owning a copy of the software or anything other than whether they have a Google account and an Internet connection.
Prezi works similarly. As with Google Slides, you can see who else is in the file and edit the material together in real time. Up to 10 people can collaborate at once, and all you need are email addresses to invite them. Apple Keynote has some newly added collaboration capabilities, though they are technically in beta as of this writing. With Microsoft PowerPoint, when you want to collaborate on a file, you first have to save the slideshow to the cloud (such as into your OneDrive or SharePoint space) and then invite people. Your collaborators have to be using PowerPoint 2010 or later, or the latest release of PowerPoint Online for it to work.
Presenting With PowToon
When you've finished making a PowToon presentation, you can export it as an MP4, PDF, or PPT file. You can also upload it directly to SlideShare, YouTube, Vimeo, Wistia, and an included hosting area called My PowToons. There is a benefit to using My PowToons instead of the other options: It's the only way to get an embed code that lets you put your finished animated presentation into another Web page so that when you update the file, those updates will automatically appear in the published version. With all the other options, any time the source file changes, you'll have to export it again and reupload it.
For businesses creating training videos or other content that they plan to use for years to come, it's important to have an embed option that will always pull from the source file. That way, when policies are updated or new logos are added to the videos, the updated content appears automatically wherever the videos are published, without any extra work.
Google Slides and Prezi include the option to embed presentations directly in a way that pulls from the source file, too.
Expertise Not Required
I like that PowToon removes the need for a video or animation expert to make dynamic presentations. The tool is simple for anyone to use, although as is the case with any presentation app, the tool alone can't make you a master. That said, PowToon's templates do guide you toward some useful principles that keep presentations tight and snappy. However, relying too much on that guidance may leave you with videos that feel overly formulaic.
PowToon is worth a try if you need to create a number of video presentations on a tight budget. Given the steep monthly price, it's really only worthwhile if you plan to use it for a year or more. And while you can get a sense of the app with the free version, don't plan on actually creating anything usable with it, due to the watermarking and other restrictions.
Powtoon To Mp4
If what you're really seeking is an alternative to boring slide decks, give Prezi a try first. It's our Editors' Choice for non-traditional presentation tools. And if you'd rather stick with something more mundane, you can't go wrong with PowerPoint or Keynote, PCMag's Editors' Choices for slideshow software.