Word vs Powerpoint

Aura

Aura

New Member
First of all, hi! I am a recent graduate in my first design job and I am the only designer at my company, so hopefully I can gain experience from people on this forum.

I have to create a large document (150+ pages) to be handed out to potential clients. The sales team need to be able to delete any irrelevant pages depending on sector, size of client etc. and add logos/fonts/colours to personalise the document. They do not have Adobe Acrobat and as we're only a small company they won't buy it, so using InDesign is unfortunately not possible.

What would people recommend for this task? Powerpoint or Word? Which do you think will give me most creative freedom but be easily editable for the sales team. The output will be a pdf file predominantly for web use.

Thanks!
 
Powerpoint is quite powerful and you can place a lot of things.

You should be very careful as most people just throw in whatever they have and this affects file size - you can reduce the file size by compressing the images https://support.office.com/en-NZ/Ar...-picture-5ad8ca3d-f251-4d96-a9ae-3e7ee374c91e

Which will keep the file size down - but 150 pages is going to be quite large powerpoint file anyway.


Word is ok - but I find things can jump quite a lot which makes doing nice layouts nearly impossible.



I'd suggest trialing maybe the first 20 pages in both and see what everyone prefers.


Make sure to use System Fonts found on everyones computer, like Arial, Times, Calibri etc.


And if you can't afford InDesign then consider getting Scribus, it's like InDesign but it's free to use - it doesn't have all the bells and whistles but it's close enough for what you're describing plus it will give you ultimate control on the design, layouts and edits.
 
Instead of buying Acrobat outright, can't they pay a monthly subscription for its use? I'm not up to date with the creative suite but I think that is what CC is making people do these days, almost like renting rather than buying. Maybe a cheaper / more affordable option for them.
 
Thanks so much for your quick replies.

I hadn't considered file size so that link will be really helpful! Thanks for the advice.

Word is ok - but I find things can jump quite a lot which makes doing nice layouts nearly impossible.
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This is reminding me of times I have had issues with Word, especially when sending from PCs to Macs. I will trial both but I'm now thinking PowerPoint is the way to go.

And sorry I wasn't clear, I have InDesign at work though a subscription, however they aren't going to buy it for anyone else, nor will they buy Adobe Acrobat so they can edit the pdfs. They're very cost conscious and will do anything to avoid paying money.

I think I will check out Scribus for use at home though :)
 
Didn't they have to buy MS Office for everyone?

I fail to see how buying Creative Cloud for anyone is any different?

Another Option is Microsoft Publisher, if everyone has that.
 
Sounds to me like they're just creating more headaches and trouble for everyone involved by trying to avoid buying Acrobat. It's less than £15 a month for the pro version, and is exactly right for what you/they need to be able to do.
 
If you build your document right, PowerPoint can be a useful layout tool (so long as things are contained within single slides). As with anything in the Office suite, however, layouts fall rapidly to pieces and lose all of their finesse when people lacking the required knowledge and expertise start making changes. Therefore, as the only designer in the company, I'd argue that you ought to act as guardian of the brand when it comes to anything client or public facing and strongly encourage them to allow you to build materials in a program better fitted to the purpose.
 
Thanks everyone. I didn't get a work laptop until 9 months into the job and I've only just managed to get Office and the latest versions of Adobe (was using OpenOffice which they complained about all the time yet wouldn't pay for the proper software). It does make my job quite hard a lot of the time and I'm generally not overly impressed...but I find it quite hard to say much being my first job and having no prior experience.

But I think you're all right, I need to make a stand and strongly suggest that Adobe Acrobat is the way forward. Fingers crossed. (If not PowerPoint it is!)
 
Perhaps you would gain more experience working for an employer who is willing to invest a little more. I don't expect my staff to work without tools. Not investing in software is very short sighted nowadays. Also, if you 'rent' the Adobe CC, it is constantly updated and all staff can use documents on the cloud. Good stuff.
 
robinsestates said:
Perhaps you would gain more experience working for an employer who is willing to invest a little more. I don't expect my staff to work without tools. Not investing in software is very short sighted nowadays. Also, if you 'rent' the Adobe CC, it is constantly updated and all staff can use documents on the cloud. Good stuff.
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I know this, and I am planning on looking once I pass my driving test. It's better than nothing though and it took me long enough to find this!
 
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