Microsoft updates Sway with embeds and more

Microsoft has been working on a presentation tool called Office Sway, which is basically a modern version of the company's own PowerPoint but is designed for story telling. It has been available as a web preview since October 2014, and also as an iPhone app, which was recently expanded in more countries, opening the door for more people to try it out.

The first preview released was quite basic, but Microsoft engineers have been adding lots of new features to it, such as Bing Images and Suggested Search integration, in order to make the Sway your one stop for everything you need to add to your presentation. Recently, the company has announced a couple of new features that make Sway even more convenient and easy-to-use.

So what's new in the latest version? Well, the most important novelty is the capability to embed media from sources other than Bing, which has been one of the most requested features in the preview program. Now you can easily add a variety of web content types to your presentation, such as videos, images, audio clips, maps, charts and documents.

This is not limited to pulling content from sites such as Vimeo, Vine, Youtube, Flickr, or SoundCloud. Users can also use Excel charts, PowerPoint slides and even PDF content from either their PC or their OneDrive cloud storage. If you have older Word .doc and PowerPoint .ppt files, Sway can now import content from them as well.

The Office team has also refined the process of organizing text and images in your Sway presentation. Now you can not only group or stack cards, but also separate them if you need to, without having to undo other changes. The tool is still a work in progress, and while these changes are not that big, they add up to help Sway become a true competitor to the classic PowerPoint.

Source: Office Blogs