If you have got a PowerPoint or PDF presentation that you want to share with everyone else, or even if you just want to quickly make one with a bunch of images, ZURB’s new lightweight Web application Reel lets you do that. And more.
We’ve seen some great Web apps come out of the ZURB stable over the past year, from the online annotation app Bounce and its big brother Notable to the to-do list app Strike, the company has been producing well-designed apps consistently. Reel, from the looks of it, is a great addition to their portfolio.
The app allows you to upload PowerPoint or Word documents, PDFs or some images to turn them into an online slideshow. The end result, done in HTML5, contains no Flash and works well on both computers and mobile devices. There is no account to sign up for and no setting up to do; it does not even so much as ask you for your email address! Just upload your files and you’re good to go.
It gives you options to share your presentations on Facebook and Twitter (because, really, who doesn’t?) and—here’s the coolest part—even embed it on your own website, as I have done below. It also includes some rating tools for your viewers to express approval or disapproval about your presentations, which you can later track (and obsess over).
The app is free for all users and allows uploading and sharing of unlimited presentations. The whole service is really well-designed: it has no flourishes of breathtaking UI, but, as far as utilitarian Web designs go, it’s up there among the better ones. It does have a couple of cons—the tracking of statistics is less than stellar and there is no option to upload videos—but hey, it’s free, it’s fast and it gets the job done with minimal fuss.
We’d say that’s a pretty good start.
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