Make your case on the go

Microsoft Sway, still in the works, promises to be the presentation app for people in a hurry

The preview version of the Microsoft Sway app, meant to bring basic webpage and presentation design to smartphones and tablets primarily, will remind you of your school days. For the app is HTML webpagemaking (minus the commands), PowerPoint (PPT) templates and tacky WordArt shadow and three-D texts rolled into one. The preview app offers a few templates for making slideshows and was made available by invitation in October and later opened for Android and Apple devices. Because it didn't let me choose a template on my phone, I made a two-slide presentation (pictured) on the laptop. Though it could be viewed on my 5.5-inch OnePlus One, editing wasn't possible even through the Microsoft Office Mobile app. And the Office Mobile doesn't provide free PowerPoint templates. It only offered Word templates for making slideshows, which get saved on the company's OneDrive storage cloud. The Sways, on the other hand, are saved on the Azure software/platform cloud. 

For a quick high-school presentation, the Sway Preview is promising. The number of templates and font and colour palettes are more than enough. But since it is still in the works, most likely they'll add graphs also later. Or even now, you can add stuff from anywhere else - it's integrated with Facebook, YouTube, etc - straight to the Sway by simply dragging and dropping on to your presentation. 

The font and colour palettes are, however, bundled and you don't get to make your own combinations. The presentation adapts to the device it's being viewed on. So, my two-slide presentation's text appeared like just another PPT on the laptop but the text and photos got squeezed and spilt out on the phone. Viewing on the phone in either the portrait or the landscape mode was also problematic, with each mode cutting out some part of the slide. 

You need to sign up with the Sway as well as the Office applications. For full PPT functionality, I was asked to buy a subscription. When I tried making a new slideshow in the Sway, I repeatedly got stuck at the stage where I'm supposed to choose a template. The website - there's no app in the Google Play Store yet - kept asking me to either start again in the PowerPoint Online app (subscription needed) or directed me to the OneDrive app that only had WordArt functionality. 

It'd be unfair to judge the Sway so early but it needs to include some option to make charts if it aims to become the tool of choice for professionals on the go.