Chronicle is a promising new tool for creating compelling visual presentations. Prioritizing design and full control over bullet points or speed, Chronicle offers a valuable alternative to PowerPoint and other popular online slide services like Gamma, Beautiful.ai, Canva, and Pitch.

Because Chronicle just launched its public beta this week, some of its features aren’t full developed yet, like templates and image editing. But it’s already one of the most exciting new services for creating slick summary reports, pitch decks, and portfolios. I particularly appreciate how it lets me easily manage how each slide looks. I can start from scratch or with an AI-assisted draft. Read on for how to use it, its limitations, and alternatives.

🪜 How to get started with Chronicle

* Visit ChronicleHQ.com to create a free account. It works on any browser.

* Start from scratch with a blank page or generate a draft with AI.

* To start with AI, provide a link, a prompt, or upload a PDF of a past presentation or report.

* I prefer starting from scratch to fully manage the look of each page, unless I’m transforming a specific document I’ve created into a deck.

* Edit slides by adjusting text, images, or embedded content.

* Share. When you’re done editing, share in three ways.

* Share a link to the presentation.

* Download a PDF and share it.

* Present live online or in person.

Examples of slide decks made with Chronicle

* Chronicle’s own demo deck

* A proposal deck for a design agency

* Brand Guidelines for AskTheRisk

* A curated collection of design objects

* Website design proposal

* My draft Wonder Tools draft deck for sponsors

Pricing

For now, while in public beta, Chronicle is fully free for everyone. Eventually:

* Free for unlimited decks and limited AI tokens.

* $30/month for a pro account to remove the Chronicle watermark, add guest editors, get additional AI credits, and import a PDF or URL to prompt the AI.

🎨 Generate an AI draft

If you’re not a designer or loath spending hours designing presentations from scratch, try Chronicle’s AI.

* Prompt the AI. Paste in text, upload a PDF, or share a link.

* Customize the AI by adjusting your preferences:

* Select the type of presentation you’re drafting (pitch, sales, proposal, etc).

* Choose the number of slides (“chapters”) you want Chronicle to create.

* Decide how creative vs. faithful the AI should be in adapting your text. In faithful mode it will change less of your prompt material.

* Pick your language and a light or dark theme.

* Review the outline. After Chronicle renders an outline, you can move chapters around or make other adjustments before it produces a draft deck for you to edit.

* Edit the draft deck. Once Chronicle produces your draft, you can add or subtract slides, customize the text and images, adjust styles, embed other content, and present or share your deck.

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🎨 Pick elements to tell your story

Chronicle’s slide canvas is flexible, so you can customize each page.

* Text elements: Add a heading, paragraph text, or smaller callout text.

* Visuals: Upload images or embed videos or graphics from online services.

* Creative cards: Drop in boxes with icon or number headers to define sections of a slide, or bring in quote cards or sticky notes for visual variety.

* Gradients and grids: Apply a background gradient to an image or text box, or insert a layout grid to organize and align slide elements.

* Embeds. Add an Airtable table, a Figma illustration, a Notion page, a Google Sheet, a YouTube video, or other online content.

Limitations and Caveats

* No templates yet. Founder Mayuresh Patole tells me they’re coming soon.

* Limited photo editing capabilities so far. No direct Unsplash integration.

* Overwhelming number of options. The “remix” option for re-formatting a slide has a daunting 64 different slide styles. I find it too complex and it’s tricky to figure out what style might best fit a particular slide’s content.

* No mobile app, though I don’t like creating slides on a phone anyway.

Chronicle’s founder on how it’s distinct

I interviewed Mayuresh Patole, Chronicle’s founder, who told me the team is working on simplifying the interface and adding templates. “Every other tool out there is designed to make slides faster,” he said. “We will help you make your best presentation, a stunning output, without you having to be a designer.”

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Good alternatives for creating presentations

Beautiful.ai

A colleague and I made our slides with Beautiful.ai for a recent AI workshop. I like how it automatically reflows any slide I’m working on when I add or subtract text or images.

* Consider Beautiful.ai if… you want each slide to auto-adjust so it remains well-designed even when you add new material or move elements around.

* Pricing: $12/month billed annually

* Read more: What I like about Beautiful.ai

Gamma

This is a great service for teachers, creators, and anyone who wants the flexibility to create pages with varied dimensions.

* Consider Gamma if… you want to turn an existing document or outline into a website, document, social post, or slides.

* Example: an AI-assisted sample deck Gamma helped me create about the future of kites.

* Pricing: free for basic use or $8 to $15/month billed annually for more AI access and removing watermarks.

* Read more: Why Gamma is so useful.

Pitch

This works well for team collaboration because you can share styles and custom templates, assign tasks, and trade comments. The templates options are superb, so it’s easy to create a compelling presentation just by swapping out a template’s text and images without getting lost in the weeds of fonts, grids, or color palettes.

* Consider Pitch if… you develop presentations with a team and want to track analytics to measure engagement on pitch or sales decks.

* Pricing: free for basic decks, or $22/month paid annually for pro features.

Typeset

Create slide decks, ebooks or social posts with or without AI. I like that you can quickly preview various versions of any slide with a click of a button. I created this demo deck in 10 minutes and found Typeset easy, flexible, and fast.

* Consider Typeset if… you want to create not just slides, but ebooks or social posts.

* Pricing: $17 billed annually.

Canva

Since Canva first enabled presentations four years ago, people have created three billion slide decks, including a billion in 2024 alone. You can embed any Canva element into a slide, from tables and charts to whiteboards and videos. Magic Studio AI helps with refining images or text. When you’re done making a deck it’s easy to share or present it live, or send a pre-recorded version.

* Consider Canva if… you’re already comfortable with its design interface or have a brand kit set up with your logo, color palette, templates, and image library.

* Pricing: Free for basic usage; $10/month billed annually for premium content

* Read my previous (subscriber) posts about making the most of Canva

What’s your preferred tool or tactic for creating and sharing slides? Leave a comment 👇

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