I've been looking for a good LTD slidemaker on AppSumo for a while now. I have Slideoo but it's buggy and the output is a bit messy. I'm hoping Slideoo will improve but I'm still in the market for something better. I actually still use the $9 Clever Slides as it gives me a decent text output that I plop into PowerPoint.

SmartSlide is a steal at $29. It's basically Clever Slides - it outputs good PowerPoint text - but puts it into a template. SmartSlide doesn't have images enabled yet. Yes, the template is all the same with text to one side. But in one take I was able to generate a readable, organized slide presentation on a topic that required NO editing. I downloaded it, opened it up in PowerPoint, and was able to add images and change up the design easily with PP's auto design generator. Boom. Nice slides.

While it's not an all in one solution for me yet, SmartSlide a timesaver for me...compared to Clever Slides especially, because copying and pasting text over to PowerPoint is slow.

I'm also testing DrLambda, which is promising, but the text output on that was not as good as SmartSlide, at least in my initial test. DrLambda has more bells and whistles but it also takes a bit of time to get things right. The whole point of me purchasing a product like this is to cut down my slide generation time. I'm not sure if DrLambda is really that time effective right now.

So bottom line: If I need a quick presentation, SmartSlides will do it for me fast. Even if all they ever offer is their current default layout, this is a win - most students of mine aren't going to care if the text is on the left and the image is on the right.

At $29, with unlimited presentations, this is a steal right now. Consider the cost vs. benefit. There's no reason not to buy this, it's the cost of a hamburger and fries at some burger joints these days.