Introducing the New Slides Generator Web App

It has been 2 months since we announced huge upgrades for Slides Generator including slide sync, auto layouts and more. These have all greatly improved our users' experiences in using Google Docs™ as the central hub for their presentations.

We are so excited to announce several huge updates.

Slides Generator Web App

Today we are introducing the new Slides Generator web app. For the past two and half years, the Slides Generator Google Docs™ add-on was the only way to create slides.

While it has served our existing users well, a huge number of users cannot access our functionality due to permission restrictions that prevent installing add-ons in many organizations.

The web app allows users to create and manage Slides from Google Docs™ without having to get organization approval to install an add-on. It provides a fast and snappy user experience that mirrors the add-on, turning Google Docs™ into a presentation hub.

We encourage new and existing users to try out the web app to generate and sync to Google Slides.

Turn data tables into charts

Another massive feature we are introducing today is the ability to turn raw data tables in Google Docs™ into charts.

This allows you to move from structured data to visualization in just a few clicks.

No more creating charts in Google Sheets™ or another tool and copy-pasting into Google Slides™. Slides Generator greatly simplifies your workflow.

This is especially useful for recurring reports, performance updates, and any presentations where the numbers need to be meaningfully presented.

You can even copy linked data tables from Google Sheets™ and have them all refreshed in Google Docs™. That way all your charts are synced to the latest data in Google Sheets™.

A tighter privacy-first permissions model

You will be glad to hear that we have removed the need for the permission to see, edit, create and delete all your Google Slides presentations.

This is a permission that most add-ons working with Google Slides request. We had likewise originally built our software around it.

In order to stop requesting this permission and put our users' privacy first, we undertook a massive task of rewriting everything while keeping the functionality the same.

The result of the rewrite is an app that is much more aligned with the principle of least privilege. We now only request access to documents or presentations that the user selects. This is a huge win for all our users.

Set brand colours and assets

Slides Generator produces various elements where colours can be configured, like auto layout cards, icon backgrounds and more.

However, it can be fiddly to make these colours fit a dark or light theme.

Instead of tedious manual configuration, users can now configure a few brand colours directly, which will automatically apply to all presentation elements.

There is still the option to configure colours manually if desired. To make this easier, we have gone the extra step to consolidate colour configuration into one screen rather than having to navigate multiple screens.

Users can also upload logos and background image assets which can be easily added to one or more slides.

Reusable slides

If you maintain presentations in your organization, you've probably had to copy and paste slides into multiple presentations.

Perhaps it's the same "Our Team", "About Us", "Contact Us" or "Disclaimer" slide that needs to be in all your presentations.

What if one day, you need to change the information? That means making the change in every presentation containing those slides.

Even if all the content was in a Google Doc™, trying to maintain the same information across the document doesn't scale well.

Our reusable slides feature solves this problem.

Any slide or group of slides that you create can be copied and inserted into multiple presentations within the same Google Doc™.

When you update the original source slide, all linked slides are updated accordingly.

Contextual menus

Built for evergreen and recurring presentations

All these updates are part of the bigger direction for Slides Generator.

Which is to be a content manager for evergreen and recurring presentations rather than just a one-off presentation generator.

We aim to better serve individuals and teams that need to regularly maintain content across multiple presentations on an ongoing basis.

Try out the new web app or install the add-on, connect a Google Doc™ and enjoy these new features today.