Proclaim vs Powerpoint

Just interested in hearing from those who have used both Proclaim and Power Point what they think the pros and cons are when comparing them.

I have gotten pretty comfortable with Power Point and if I was to switch to Proclaim, I would want to feel sure that it would be well worth the cost and effort to become familiar with a new program.

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Mark Barnes

Just interested in hearing from those who have used both Proclaim and Power Point what they think the pros and cons are when comparing them.

I have gotten pretty comfortable with Power Point and if I was to switch to Proclaim, I would want to feel sure that it would be well worth the cost and effort to become familiar with a new program.

The pros and cons for us are very simple.

Proclaim is better because:

Very, very easy to collaborate and have multiple PCs and people involved.
Lots of backgrounds etc. that are specifically designed for churches.
Much easier to input scripture and songs, and to re-use previous elements in later services.

Powerpoint is better because:

It's much more flexible - there are infinite layout possibilities, for example, whereas Proclaim is much more limited.
There are more animation options.

Overall, I'd never go back to Powerpoint. I don't particularly care about animations (I find them distracting), and there are often workarounds for Proclaim's layout restrictions. When there aren't, I can always import a Powerpoint slide.

Our Proclaim workflow is that one of a team of volunteers inputs the slides for each service on their home PC. A second volunteer proofreads it, again on their home PC. I then make any final last-minute changes on Sunday morning on my PC. A third volunteer then handles the presentation itself on the church laptop. That workflow just wouldn't be possible without Proclaim, and it's cut down on errors and problems. and spread the workload enormously. In addition, it's really quick. Typically, each volunteer spends on 15-20 minutes doing their part. We don't waste time formatting, tweaking, etc, as Proclaim handles all that.

One final advantage - the limited options means that users typically only require 30 minutes of training to learn almost everything Proclaim can do. That means if they break something (say, deleting a slide accidentally), they can nearly always fix it themselves. There's no advanced functions like there is in Powerpoint which might trip them up.

I can't speak for big churches with a large budget, but for a small church that's largely run by volunteers, we've found Proclaim to be an ideal solution.

I have gotten pretty comfortable with Power Point and if I was to switch to Proclaim, I would want to feel sure that it would be well worth the cost and effort to become familiar with a new program.

I'd be pretty confident that you could easily learn how to use Proclaim within the 30-day trial period.

Mike Binks

I agree with everything that Mark says.

However for me the 'Preservice loop' and the 'Warm Up' sections are a great help.

Getting in early and getting things running means that the congregation never gets to see the desktop on the screen with all my left over half finished jobs.

In my experience there are a lot of folk who claim to be 'competent with powerpoint' who have never used the presentation mode and inflict a good deal of 'desktop viewing' on their congregations.

Brandyn Whittington

Hey Jordan! I know you're asking for responses from our users, but I wanted to add something for you from us as well. On top of the training resources and help you we can provide on our forums, or the Proclaim Faithlife, you can also have a 30 minute training session with one of our Proclaim representatives as well! You can schedule your free 30 minute training here.