The short answer: the add-ons most teachers get the most out of are Pear Deck and Nearpod for turning a deck into an interactive lesson, MathType or Hypatia Create for equations, Slides Translator for multilingual classes, and Extensis Fonts and Pixabay for making a deck look good quickly. Install them from the Google Workspace Marketplace via Extensions → Add-ons → Get add-ons.
Updated August 2026
Google Slides on its own is a competent presentation tool. What makes it genuinely useful in a classroom is the add-on layer: small third-party extensions that bolt on equation editors, live student questions, translation, diagramming and stock images without leaving the deck.
This guide covers ten that are live and working as of August 2026, with what each one actually costs today. That last part matters more than it sounds — three of the tools in the previous version of this guide have changed their pricing model since it was written, and two have been removed from the Marketplace altogether. Add-on guides go stale quietly, because the article keeps sitting there long after the vendor has moved on.
What Google Slides add-ons actually are
An add-on is a third-party app that installs into Google Slides and adds a sidebar or menu item. Once installed it is tied to your Google account, so it follows you into any presentation you open.
A few things worth knowing before you install anything:
- Add-ons request permissions. Most ask to see and edit the presentations they are installed in. Read the permission screen — it is shown on every Marketplace listing before you install.
- Your district may control installs. Many school Google Workspace tenants restrict Marketplace installs to an allow-list. If Get add-ons is greyed out or an install silently fails, that is your admin, not a bug.
- “Free” is doing a lot of work. Several popular add-ons are free to install but capped in use, or free only on a trial. The list below states the current model for each.
- It is “Google Workspace”, not “G Suite”. Google renamed the product in 2020; older guides (including the previous version of this one) still say G Suite, and old
gsuite.google.comlinks now redirect.
The 10 best Google Slides add-ons for teachers
| Add-on | Best for | Cost model (Aug 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Pear Deck | Interactive questions mid-lesson | Free and paid tiers |
| Nearpod | Polls, quizzes, VR field trips | Add-on requires a paid licence |
| MathType | Maths and chemistry notation | Paid, 30-day free trial |
| Hypatia Create | Fast equation entry | Paid, 30-day free trial (changed) |
| Slides Translator | Multilingual classrooms | Free monthly allowance, then paid (changed) |
| Lucidchart | Diagrams and flow charts | Free of charge with paid features |
| Extensis Fonts | Browsing and previewing fonts | Free of charge |
| Pixabay Free Images | Copyright-safe photos in-deck | Free of charge |
| Slides Toolbox | Bulk formatting, repetitive tasks | Free with paid features |
| SlidesAI.io | Turning text into a first draft deck | Free tier with paid plans |
1. Pear Deck — best for interactive questions
Still the most widely installed of the group, with 80 million+ installs recorded on its Marketplace listing. Pear Deck lets you drop interactive question slides into an ordinary deck: warm-ups, exit tickets, text and number responses, drawing prompts and draggable slides.
You present from the Pear Deck sidebar, students join at peardeck.com/join with a session code, and answers appear on your dashboard. Answers can be shown anonymously on the projector, which is the feature that makes it usable with a class that will not otherwise volunteer. Student-Paced Mode lets students work through the deck at their own speed.
What changed: Pear Deck is now part of Pear Deck Learning, a GoGuardian company, alongside Pear Practice (formerly Giant Steps) and Pear Assessment (formerly Edulastic). There are free and paid tiers, but the plan structure has been reorganised more than once — check the current pricing page rather than trusting any guide’s tier list, including this one.
2. Nearpod — best for engagement, if your school pays for it
Nearpod turns a deck into a lesson with polls, quizzes, open-ended questions, collaborative boards, matching pairs, simulations and VR field trips. The Draw It tool, which lets students sketch an answer, is the one most often cited by primary teachers.
Read this before you install it: Nearpod’s own Marketplace listing states that “the Google Slides™ add-on is limited to paid Nearpod licenses.” The free-month promotion that older guides mention is no longer advertised. If your school does not hold a paid Nearpod licence, the add-on will not be usable — use Pear Deck instead.
3. MathType — best for maths and chemistry notation
MathType lets you write equations and chemical formulas and insert them into a slide as editable images. On a touch device you can handwrite an equation and have it converted. It also installs into Google Docs, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint on the same subscription, which is the main argument for it over a Slides-only editor.
Cost: paid, with a 30-day free trial. We recorded a short demo of the MathType Slides add-on if you want to see the sidebar before installing.
4. Hypatia Create — fast equation entry
Hypatia Create is the other serious equation editor for Slides, built for speed: insert anything from simple algebra to matrices, customise colour and alignment, and paste equations in from Wikipedia, Mathpix or MathType. It works across Docs, Slides, Forms, Word and PowerPoint on one subscription.
Pricing has changed. Older guides — including the earlier version of this page — describe Hypatia as free for teachers and students, with licensing only needed by institutions. That is no longer accurate. The listing now offers a 30-day free trial, after which you choose an Individual, Group or Site licence. If you specifically need a free equation editor, this is no longer it.
5. Slides Translator — best for multilingual classrooms
Slides Translator translates slide text, speaker notes and even text locked inside images, then regenerates the image with the translated text — which is the capability that separates it from copy-pasting into a translator. It offers a choice of translation engines (Google Translate, DeepL, or Gemini for context-aware translation) and its listing states FERPA, COPPA, SOPPA and GDPR compliance, which is usually the first question a district asks.
Pricing has changed. It is no longer simply free. The current listing advertises a free allowance — 200 slide translations to start, plus 100 free slide translations each month — with paid plans beyond that. For occasional use that allowance is generous; for a whole department it is not.
6. Lucidchart — best for diagrams and flow charts
Lucidchart builds mind maps, flow charts, entity-relationship diagrams and process maps collaboratively, then inserts them into your deck. Drag-and-drop, a decent template library, and colleagues can work on the same diagram simultaneously.
Note the name: the add-on was listed as Lucidchart Diagrams when this guide was first written and is now listed simply as Lucidchart. Its Marketplace listing describes it as free of charge with paid features.
7. Extensis Fonts — best for choosing fonts quickly
A small add-on that solves a genuinely annoying problem: instead of opening the Google Fonts menu and trying typefaces one at a time, Extensis Fonts shows them in a sidebar with live previews, sortable by trend and category. Apply to selected text in one click.
Free of charge. Now listed as Extensis Fonts for Google Docs™ and Google Slides™. Our walkthrough of the Extensis Fonts add-on shows the sidebar in use.
8. Pixabay Free Images — best for copyright-safe photos
Search and insert stock photography without leaving the deck. Pixabay images are released under a licence that permits use without attribution, which removes the copyright question that makes image sourcing awkward when a deck is going to be shared with students or posted to a class site.
Free of charge. This is the practical replacement for the Unsplash add-on that older versions of this guide recommended (see below).
9. Slides Toolbox — best for repetitive formatting
Slides Toolbox is aimed squarely at the tedious part of deck-building: applying the same change across many slides at once, unifying formatting, and organising data. If you regularly rebuild the same lesson deck with new content, it removes a lot of clicking.
Free with paid features.
10. SlidesAI.io — best for a fast first draft
SlidesAI turns a block of text into a formatted deck: paste in your notes, choose a presentation type and colour preset, and it generates slides you then edit. It is a drafting tool, not a finishing one — the output needs a teacher’s pass before it goes near a class — but it removes the blank-deck problem.
Free tier with paid plans. This whole category did not meaningfully exist when this guide was first published, which is the clearest sign of how much the Slides add-on ecosystem has moved.
Two add-ons this guide used to recommend that no longer exist
We are naming these rather than quietly deleting them, because a lot of other guides still recommend both and you may arrive here after trying to install one.
| Add-on | Status (checked August 2026) | Use instead |
|---|---|---|
| Unsplash (Slides add-on) | Delisted. The listing URL returns an error and a Marketplace search for “unsplash” returns no such add-on. Unsplash the website is still running — it is the Slides integration that is gone. | Pixabay Free Images |
| Paletti | Delisted. A Marketplace search for “paletti” returns “No matching results.” | Slides Toolbox, or the theme colour editor built into Slides |
The wider lesson, if you are choosing tools from any article: an add-on guide is only as current as its last check. Before trusting a recommendation, click the Marketplace link. If it errors, or the listing’s “Updated” date is years old, treat the rest of that guide’s picks with suspicion too.
How to install a Google Slides add-on
- Open a presentation in Google Slides.
- Click Extensions in the top toolbar.
- Hover over Add-ons and choose Get add-ons. This opens the Google Workspace Marketplace.
- Search for the add-on by name, and check the developer name matches — Marketplace search returns lookalikes with near-identical titles. Searching “slides toolbox” returns several AI deck generators alongside the real one (developer: Dawent), and the Pixabay add-on is published by learnin60seconds.com.
- Click Install and read the permissions screen before granting access.
- The add-on appears under Extensions, usually opening a sidebar on the right.
If the install fails or the menu is unavailable, it is almost always a Workspace admin restriction on your school account. Trying it on a personal Google account will confirm which it is.
Frequently asked questions
Are Google Slides add-ons free?
Many are, but fewer than guides suggest. Of the ten here, Extensis Fonts and Pixabay Free Images are free of charge; Lucidchart, Slides Toolbox and SlidesAI have free tiers with paid features; Slides Translator gives a monthly free allowance; MathType and Hypatia Create are paid with 30-day trials; and the Nearpod add-on requires a paid Nearpod licence.
Why has an add-on I installed stopped working?
The three usual causes are that the developer removed it from the Marketplace, that your school’s Workspace admin revoked or restricted it, or that its permissions changed and it is waiting for you to re-authorise. Open the Marketplace listing first — if the listing itself errors, the add-on is gone.
Can I use more than one add-on at a time?
Yes. Each installs its own sidebar and they do not conflict in normal use. The practical limit is screen space, not compatibility.
Are Google Slides add-ons safe to install on a school account?
Add-ons are third-party apps that request access to your presentations, so the permission screen is worth reading rather than clicking through. On a managed school account your admin usually controls which add-ons can be installed at all. If a tool will handle student data, check whether its listing states FERPA and COPPA compliance — Slides Translator, for example, states FERPA, COPPA, SOPPA and GDPR compliance on its listing.
What is the difference between Pear Deck and Nearpod?
Both add interactive questions to a deck. The practical difference for most teachers is access: Pear Deck has free and paid tiers, while the Nearpod Google Slides add-on is limited to paid Nearpod licences. Nearpod’s activity library is broader, including VR field trips and simulations; Pear Deck is simpler to drop into a deck you have already built.
Is there an AI add-on for Google Slides?
Yes, and this is the newest part of the ecosystem. SlidesAI.io generates a draft deck from pasted text, and Slides Translator now offers Gemini as one of its translation engines. Treat generated slides as a first draft — the value is in skipping the blank deck, not in publishing the output unedited.
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Josh Hutcheson — Editor, PriorityLearn
Josh researches, writes, and updates the answers on PriorityLearn, checking each one against current tools, official sources, and real school policies — and flagging what varies by state or district. About PriorityLearn →