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Figma Slides

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Re: Figma Slides

#81

Post by al_borland »

timr wrote: post #45
yoz wrote: post #36

At my previous job we used Google Slides, and I rapidly came to hate it. Here's why Figma Slides has me excited: - I use animation a lot, for many reasons, such as keeping audience focus on parts of the slide and visually explaining information changes and multi-step processes. It's particularly helpful for video. Figma already has much better tools for this; Google's are not particularly powerful and buggy as hell.…

All of the things you mentioned (save maybe layer lists) are why I fell in love with Keynote, and wish I could use it for all presentations. Sadly, 99% of my time is spent in Google slides, which is like banging rocks together. Keynote's ability to do things like introspect into postscript/vector objects and align on lines within the object is one of those things that makes you re-evaluate how software should work. I…

I sometimes wonder if Keynote will suffer now that Jobs is gone and the Apple keynotes have gone to using videos ever since the pandemic. I don’t think Cook ever liked doing the live demos, so the videos are likely here to stay. The presentations Jobs did were a big driver of Keynote’s development.

If you haven’t seen it, there is an interview with the guy who put those presentations together for 20 years. It’s pretty interesting.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210205063616/https://www.cake....

Re: Figma Slides

#82

Post by insane_dreamer »

timr wrote: post #45
yoz wrote: post #36

At my previous job we used Google Slides, and I rapidly came to hate it. Here's why Figma Slides has me excited: - I use animation a lot, for many reasons, such as keeping audience focus on parts of the slide and visually explaining information changes and multi-step processes. It's particularly helpful for video. Figma already has much better tools for this; Google's are not particularly powerful and buggy as hell.…

All of the things you mentioned (save maybe layer lists) are why I fell in love with Keynote, and wish I could use it for all presentations. Sadly, 99% of my time is spent in Google slides, which is like banging rocks together. Keynote's ability to do things like introspect into postscript/vector objects and align on lines within the object is one of those things that makes you re-evaluate how software should work. I…

In my experience of many years, not only is Keynote fantastic, but Pages is better than Word and Numbers is better than Excel (though not the extensive Excel ecosystem).

Re: Figma Slides

#83

Post by mattegan »

toddmorey wrote: post #65
yoz wrote: post #36

At my previous job we used Google Slides, and I rapidly came to hate it. Here's why Figma Slides has me excited: - I use animation a lot, for many reasons, such as keeping audience focus on parts of the slide and visually explaining information changes and multi-step processes. It's particularly helpful for video. Figma already has much better tools for this; Google's are not particularly powerful and buggy as hell.…

Yeah it's like slide software was bifurcated: either you can actually collaborate (google) or make quality slides (keynote). Finally some hope: Figma actually does both of those things really well. I'm also excited by what you can potentially do programmatically in Figma. Has anyone ever tried using the google slides API? It’s one of those APIs where you sort of wonder if you are the only actual user or if other peop…

I cannot stand the lack of SVG support in Google slides. When I worked on the hardware team there I hated that I had to import my polished vector block diagrams into slides as PNGs.

There was a 10+ year old bug thread with 100s of +1s for SVG support in Docs. IIRC the reasoning behind the delay was security concerns - seemed like a bit of a cop out, but what do I know?

Re: Figma Slides

#84

Post by AzzyHN »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #52
echelon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an engineer for well over a decade, I've never once touched PowerPoint or any Microsoft productivity suite, so I don't think it's as black and white as you say. Google slides have been the bread and butter of all the engineering presentations I've seen and been a part of. And that's too many to even try to count. I think this depends on what the C-suite was sold more than anything. I've never worked in a "Microsof…

Interesting. I don't know a single person that uses google slides in a professional context. It's ppt files or even just pdfs. Designers will whip something up in InDesign or Illustrator if they want total control in rare instances, though.

Genentech, and possibly the rest of the Roche pharma conglomerate, uses the full Google Suite instead of Office. Sure, they're still using Windows computers, but it's not unheard of for companies to use something other than Office.

Re: Figma Slides

#85

Post by alwillis »

yoz wrote: post #54
timr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the things you mentioned (save maybe layer lists) are why I fell in love with Keynote, and wish I could use it for all presentations. Sadly, 99% of my time is spent in Google slides, which is like banging rocks together. Keynote's ability to do things like introspect into postscript/vector objects and align on lines within the object is one of those things that makes you re-evaluate how software should work. I…

Wow, I didn't know about that Keynote feature, that's amazing. it really shows the extent to which they care about visual design as an end result. I desperately wish Apple's office apps got more development. They have the potential to be world-beating (especially Numbers) but Apple seems content to just update a couple of minor features a year and leave it at that.

> They have the potential to be world-beating (especially Numbers)

Don't sleep on Numbers. It doesn't get a lot of attention but it can do some nice things in a much less bloated interface than Excel.

It's had regular expressions for a while for example, while Excel is just getting them.

I love being able to put multiple spreadsheets on a page and arrange them in whatever way you want. Reminds me of Lotus Improv [1] from back in the day.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv

Re: Figma Slides

#86

Post by tambourine_man »

alwillis wrote: post #85
yoz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I didn't know about that Keynote feature, that's amazing. it really shows the extent to which they care about visual design as an end result. I desperately wish Apple's office apps got more development. They have the potential to be world-beating (especially Numbers) but Apple seems content to just update a couple of minor features a year and leave it at that.

> They have the potential to be world-beating (especially Numbers) Don't sleep on Numbers. It doesn't get a lot of attention but it can do some nice things in a much less bloated interface than Excel. It's had regular expressions for a while for example, while Excel is just getting them. I love being able to put multiple spreadsheets on a page and arrange them in whatever way you want. Reminds me of Lotus Improv [1]…

I like numbers, but AFAIK its file format is not open and Apple just dropped support for older versions some years ago.

Imagine not being able to open a spreadsheet from 5 years ago.

Re: Figma Slides

#87

Post by lopkeny12ko »

dijit wrote: post #79
koito17 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add another data point, I can't remember the last time I've seen a PowerPoint. Maybe in high school? In every job I've had, people used Google Slides, if presenting a slideshow at all. Additionally, when designers have demonstrated things (e.g. mock designs), they have always shared a Figma window.

Europe (especially germany, or gamedev) is all PPTs. I sold google workspace to my org and Google Slides is what is giving me the most backlash because it is considered woefully inadequate compared to powerpoint. Especially around brand identity tied to fonts.

"brand identity tied to fonts" sounds like more of a problem related to your company culture/ego of the marketing team than a shortcoming of the tool.

I guarantee you that if you substituted your company's cherished sans serif font for another sans serif font, no one would notice or care except the designers who have nothing better to occupy their time with.

Re: Figma Slides

#88

Post by freeqaz »

yoz wrote: post #36

At my previous job we used Google Slides, and I rapidly came to hate it. Here's why Figma Slides has me excited: - I use animation a lot, for many reasons, such as keeping audience focus on parts of the slide and visually explaining information changes and multi-step processes. It's particularly helpful for video. Figma already has much better tools for this; Google's are not particularly powerful and buggy as hell.…

Looks like it should be available in the free plan according to the pricing page.

> "Available in beta through 2024. In early 2025, Figma Slides will be free on Starter plans and $3 or $5/month depending on your paid plan."

https://www.figma.com/pricing/

Re: Figma Slides

#89

Post by shove »

FridgeSeal wrote: post #68
patchorang wrote: post #21

Designers are pretty good at siloing themselves. I worry this may further silo them as the rest of the business will continue to use PPT. Designers frequently express frustration about "not having a seat at the table." It's going to be tough to influence the business when using a different tool than everyone else. Edit: PPT or Google Slides* My point was more about using the tool that the rest of the business is usin…

As a dev, I say more power to them. I support people using better tools for things. Maybe if we kept this up we’d all be using good things, and not stuck with MS Teams and Google slides because little Timmy in marketing chews crayons and can’t figure out how to use anything but the most basic software.

Timmy in marketing knows things you cannot fathom

Re: Figma Slides

#90

Post by noodlesUK »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #82
timr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the things you mentioned (save maybe layer lists) are why I fell in love with Keynote, and wish I could use it for all presentations. Sadly, 99% of my time is spent in Google slides, which is like banging rocks together. Keynote's ability to do things like introspect into postscript/vector objects and align on lines within the object is one of those things that makes you re-evaluate how software should work. I…

In my experience of many years, not only is Keynote fantastic, but Pages is better than Word and Numbers is better than Excel (though not the extensive Excel ecosystem).

I agree. I recently tried to do something in MS Office that was fairly simple in Pages: create a straightforward invoice.

I discovered that Word doesn’t even support formulae in its tables, which came as a great surprise. Apparently I needed to do this in Excel, which of course meant that the whole document needed to be written as fixed-width cells. This totally sucked for my use case.

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