A lot of people love Google products for how easily they sync up with one another and their generally straightforward, user-friendly interface. Plus, they tend to come at much lower price points than their popular counterparts (we’re lookin’ at you, Apple).
Well, Google’s Chromebook checks off all those boxes, making it a viable contender in the world of laptops. However, many aren’t super keen on Google’s built-in writing, editing, and presenting tools and aren’t yet ready to say goodbye to their beloved Microsoft Suite.
Fortunately, now you don’t have to. Previously, Microsoft Suite—Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook—were only available on OS and Andriod devices, leaving Chromebooks out to dry. But that’s since changed with all four programs now available on new versions of the Chromebook.
But the big questions is: Do they work?
Yes, yes they do.
We’re going to focus on PowerPoint because presentations are what we do here, but the functionality is just about the same across all four Microsoft programs.
All you have to do to get PowerPoint up and running on your Chromebook is head to the Google Play store and download the app for it. That said, if you’re using a device with a display that’s larger than 10.1 inches, then you’ll need to buy a subscription to Microsoft in order to edit anything, but the subscription packages are relatively affordable, starting at $7 per month. In addition to giving you full PowerPoint functionality, the subscription also gets you 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage as well as desktop versions of Microsoft Suite.
Once you have it downloaded and paid for, you’ll find that using it is a breeze and not unlike using it on any other device. Even better, you don’t even have to edit your presentations from the Chromebook—if you have a free Microsoft account, you can edit any Microsoft files in Office Online, which is the browser version of the suite.
So, Google and PowerPoint enthusiasts everywhere can rejoice—PowerPoint now works like a dream on all new Chromebooks.
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