• Microsoft PowerPoint is a program that lets you create presentations and slide decks.
• PowerPoint is part of Microsoft 365's suite of productivity applications.
• Learn how to create a new presentation, and add text, images, videos, audio, and more.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a program designed to help you make interactive, multimedia decks consisting of multiple pages called slides. First created by a software company named Forethought Inc. in 1987, PowerPoint was acquired by Microsoft and released in 1990 in a format similar to the one you know now.

PowerPoint has been continually updated and improved over the years, and today it is a powerful tool that can be used for meetings and presentations, to create collaborative, dynamic documents, to create digital signage, and much more.

What is Microsoft PowerPoint best used for?

PowerPoint is an excellent tool for transmitting ideas. Because the program can use text, sounds, and media such as photos and videos, it is ideal for business presentations heavy on data, for educators to share facts and concepts, for realtors to use in showcasing properties, for marketers to use to introduce new products, and much more.

Anytime you have information to transmit in a multimedia format, PowerPoint is a great program to use. You can arrange PowerPoint slides based on chronology, scale, to tell a story, or however else will best serve your purposes.

Can you get Microsoft PowerPoint for free?

There are a few ways to get Microsoft PowerPoint for free, though they tend to have limitations. You can use PowerPoint for free online when you use a Microsoft 365 account online, which is free but does require creating an account. You have to use PowerPoint in a web browser if you try this technique.

You can also get a free Microsoft 365 app on a smartphone or tablet and use PowerPoint within that app, though using the program on a smaller touchscreen device can be frustrating.

To get the full range of functionality of PowerPoint, you need to need to pay, though. To buy the standalone program for a one-time purchase price, you'll pay $179.99, or you can pay for the full Microsoft 365 suite of programs, which includes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and other useful software. A yearly subscription to Microsoft 365 costs $69.99, or you can do a one-time purchase for $149.99.

What are some alternatives to Microsoft PowerPoint?

PowerPoint is not alone in the interactive multimedia presentation creation software game. Its competitors include Apple Keynote and Google Slides. Which is better among PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, and Google Slides is largely a matter of personal preference.

If you are more comfortable with the Mac OS than with Windows, for instance, Keynote will be your best bet. In a similar vein, if ease-of-use is critical for you, Apple Keynote is generally considered less overwhelming to learn and use than PowerPoint or Google Slides.

If collaboration with coworkers, students, or friends and family is critical for you, Google Slides is the best choice, as it allows multiple users to edit and comment simultaneously. PowerPoint's cloud integration allows for real-time co-authoring and sharing through OneDrive, but it's not as seamless as Google Slides. And Keynote's collaborative features are limited compared to PowerPoint and Google Slides.

However, if creating a richly-composed multimedia deck is paramount, go with PowerPoint. PowerPoint has features such as a graphic designer that put a high degree of control into its users' hands.

How to make a PowerPoint Presentation

The basic steps to making a PowerPoint presentation are quite approachable, though admittedly it can get complicated at a highly involved level. Here are some simple steps to get you started, though.

Create a presentation

1. Open PowerPoint.
2. In the left pane, select New.
3. Select an option: to create a presentation from scratch, select Blank Presentation. To use a prepared design, select one of the templates. Either way, hit Create.

Add text to your slides

1. Add a slide by clicking the thumbnails on the left pane and selecting the slide type you want your new slide to follow or in the Home tab, select New Slide. Now, you have a single-slide deck made.
2. In the Slides section, click Layout, and then select the layout you want from the menu, in this case a text box.
3. Place the cursor inside the text box, and then write something.
4. Select the text, and then hit one or more options from the Font section of the Home tab, such as bold, italic, underline, and so forth.

Add images, videos, audio, or tables

1. Click the to the Insert tab, then select Pictures.
2. Select the source you want. (Your desktop, for example)
3. Browse for the picture you want, select it, and then select Insert.

You can follow these same steps to insert tables, videos, audio clips, and more.

You can even use Microsoft's Copilot AI tool to help you along the way — users can now add a Microsoft Copilot Pro subscription to use AI features in all Microsoft 365 apps, including PowerPoint, for $20 per month.

With Copilot, you can type instructions to have the AI tool create and edit slides for you, and even generate speaker notes or merge content from other Microsoft 365 files, like a Word doc or Excel sheet.

• Melinda French Gates is one of the world's richest women, even after her divorce from Bill Gates.
• Bill and Melinda Gates first met at Microsoft, and were married for 27 years.
• Here's what to know about Melinda Gates' life, career, and philanthropic pursuits.

Melinda French Gates, born Melinda Ann French, is 60 years old and one of the richest women — indeed, one of the richest people — alive today.

Though she already enjoyed a successful career before wedding Microsoft founder Bill Gates, her marriage rocketed Melinda Gates through the stratosphere in terms of wealth. But her main legacy is the money she has given away in the form of charitable works through the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Melinda Gates' early life and career

Gates seemed destined for achievement from a young age, starting with an impressive academic career.

Melinda Gates was born in 1964 in Dallas, Texas, and raised alongside three siblings. She developed an early interest in computers and programming and, after graduating from high school at the top of her class, she went on to earn dual degrees in computer science and economics from Duke University.

She then earned an MBA from Duke as well. She completed both undergraduate degrees and her master's in just five years.

The first company for which Melinda Gates ever worked would also be the last corporation of which she was an employee: Microsoft. Gates joined to software juggernaut in 1987 after turning down an offer from the then larger IBM, per the National Women's History Museum.

Gates worked in the growing firm's marketing department and soon was helping to develop and launch software products including Publisher; Cinemania; the vaunted word processing platform still used today, Microsoft Word; and the wildly successful travel site Expedia.

Melinda Ann French would surely have caught the eye of Microsoft CEO Bill Gates based on her success at Microsoft alone, but their meeting, four months after she joined his company, led to more than a working relationship; it led to a budding romance.

Bill and Melinda Gates' early years, marriage, and family

After seven years of dating, Bill and Melinda Gates were married in Hawaii on New Year's Day in the year 1994. It was a private — indeed secretive — ceremony that allegedly cost $1 million, hardly a problem for Bill Gates, who had been a billionaire since 1987.

Melinda Gates left Microsoft in 1996, shortly after the birth of her and Bill Gates' first child, a daughter named Jennifer. The couple had a second child, Rory, in 1999, and a third, Phoebe, who was born in 2002.

It was a few years after her departure from Microsoft that Melinda Gates stepped into a leadership role at a charitable organization that would define much of the next two decades of her life and would change the lives of thousands of people around the world.

Melinda Gates' work at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Founded in 1994 as the William H. Gates Foundation and rebranded as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) in the year 2000, after merging with the Gates Library Foundation which Melinda had set up in 1997.

To date the BMGF has given away more than $77 billion in charitable grants.

Melinda Gates served as the co-chair of the foundation for well over two decades, and during her time there the organization, at times billed as the largest private charitable organization on the planet, worked on everything from disease eradication to empowering women to developing clean water and agriculture projects and more.

Melinda French Gates stepped down from her role at the BMGF in the late spring of the year 2024, a bit less than three years after she divorced Bill Gates.

Why and when did Melinda and Bill Gates get divorced?

Melinda Gates and Bill Gates were officially divorced in 2021, ending a 27-year union. There had long been rumors of infidelity on Bill Gates' part, and in interviews, Melinda Gates cited a lack of trust and said she realized the relationship wasn't "healthy."

Melinda Gates also spoke of grieving the relationship, but ultimately making the painful decision that she could not remain married to Bill Gates.

Melinda Gates was also reported to have serious misgivings about Bill Gates' relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and alleged sex trafficker who died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019.

How much money did Melinda Gates get in the divorce?

Bill and Melinda Gates did not have a prenuptial agreement in place, opting for a separation agreement, instead. But Melinda Gates would nonetheless leave the union as a wealthy woman. She was granted more than $6.3 billion worth of Microsoft stocks, and has a total estimated net worth of $30 billion, per Forbes.

Melinda Gates' life post-divorce

Following her split from Bill Gates, Melinda Gates briefly dated a man named Jon Du Pre, a Fox News Host, but the relationship was short-lived.

What has not been short-lived is Melinda Gates' continuing dedication to philanthropy. In 2022, she formed the charitable organization Pivotal Ventures, which is, per the organization's site, dedicated "to accelerat[ing] the pace of social progress … through high-impact investments, philanthropy, partnerships, and advocacy, [it's] working to get more power in the hands of more people—especially women."

In late 2024, Melinda Gates was photographed holding hands with former Microsoft employee Phillip Vaughn, who now heads the craft beer delivery company Tavour.

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a charitable organization with a $75.2-billion endowment.
• The nonprofit was created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his now ex-wife, Melinda French Gates.
• The foundation supports causes related to global health issues, poverty, and inequity.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a nonprofit charitable organization founded by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his then-wife, Melinda French Gates. The foundation has donated tens of billions of dollars to issues like global health, gender equality, water sanitation programs, nutrition education and support, and more.

The Gates Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) organization, partners with groups that can do impactful work on specific issues in specific areas — medical researchers studying mosquito-borne illness in Tanzania, for example — and helps ensure there is proper funding for the work.

The Gates Foundation is one of the largest such organizations, second only to Denmark's medical research-focused Novo Nordisk Foundation. Its size and scope noted, there is still much people wonder about the BMGF, so let's take a closer look at who it supports, who runs it, and just how much money we're talking about here.

The history, ownership, and wealth of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was formed in 2000 as an offshoot of the William H. Gates Foundation, which the Microsoft founder created six years earlier. Bill Gates stepped down as Microsoft CEO in 2008 to devote more of his time to the foundation.

Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates divorced in August of 2021, and she resigned from her position as co-chair and trustee of the foundation in the spring of 2024. However, despite the couple's divorce, the Gates Foundation is still very active and is even growing the scope of its operations and its endowment. The foundation has about 2,000 employees, and has offices all over the world, including several in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

The former power couple aren't actually the owners of the organization. The Gates Foundation is owned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.

The Gates Foundation is best known for funding efforts to eradicate diseases like polio and malaria worldwide and addressing global poverty and malnutrition. It works closely with global health organizations like the World Health Organization and UNICEF. The foundation has backed efforts like developing and delivering vaccines to poverty-stricken countries, supporting agriculture and reducing food insecurity in developing nations, and committed more than $2 billion to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the foundation has also received criticism from global health and development experts, who have accused the organization of lacking transparency and accountability. Despite being a private, unelected entity, the foundation has had major effects and implications on public policy around the world, and its critics say it makes decisions based on the whims of its billionaire trustees rather than voters.

For instance, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into agricultural development in Africa over the years via a "green revolution" emphasizing technological innovations in farming. Instead, multiple organizations have called the efforts a failure and urged the foundation to instead listen to the needs of African farmers.

Bill and Melinda Gates have also acknowledged shortcomings in the foundation's strategies. For instance, despite spending billions on improving the US education system, with the goal of boosting high school graduation rates, the couple acknowledged that the foundation's efforts to improve American public schools were "still falling short" and said the foundation hadn't accomplished as much as they would like.

How much money does the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have?

The foundation is well-endowed, largely thanks to donations directly from the Gates themselves and billionaire Warren Buffett. BMGF has also made some excellent investments over the years.

According to its website, the foundation has an endowment of $75.2 billion. Bill and Melinda Gates have given $59.5 billion to the foundation since its inception, and Buffet has given $39.3 billion since 2006.

The foundation has billions of dollars of Microsoft stock, which is little surprise given that the software company is the provenance of Bill Gates' wealth. Bill Gates' net worth fluctuates with the stock market, but it is well over $100 billion — and that's after subtracting the $76 billion Melinda Gates gained when the couple separated.

Notably, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation does not give money to individuals, its website states, nor does it donate to "projects addressing health problems in developed countries," "political campaigns and legislative lobbying efforts," "building or capital campaigns," or "projects that exclusively serve religious purposes."

• Microsoft holds quarterly earnings calls to discuss the company's financial performance.
• In 2024, earnings calls touched on topics like the Activision Blizzard acquisition, AI, and layoffs.
• Here's what to know about Microsoft's revenues, profits, and more.

Information about Microsoft's earnings is released publicly at the end of each quarter of the fiscal year. For Microsoft, this is done during an earnings call usually hosted by CEO Satya Nadella.

An earnings call consists of company executives laying out the current state of the company's financial situation and explaining how the company performed over the course of the closing quarter. It also involves projections about upcoming fiscal performance. These calls are closely watched by investors, economists, and regulators.

In 2024, some of the major themes on these earnings calls were the advancement of AI tools like Copilot, which was first launched in late 2023, and layoffs at Microsoft, largely in the company's gaming division.

Microsoft Q1 earnings 2025

Things were going well for Microsoft as of the October 2024 earnings call which covered the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year calendar. Revenues were just over $65.6 billion, a 16% increase year-over-year.

Among the specifics discussed were a 10% increase in revenue for LinkedIn and a 61% increase in revenues for Xbox "content and services."

The company reportedly returned $9 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks. On October 30, Microsoft's stock price was trading at around $432 per share.

Microsoft Q4 earnings 2024

The July 2024 earnings call was mostly filled with good news. Amy Hood, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Microsoft reported that the quarterly revenue was $64.7 billion, which was up 15% over the previous quarter.

Hood also reported that share prices were up $2.95 over the previous quarter. (On July 30, 2024, Microsoft share prices were at $4.22.92 per share at the close of the market.) Q4 was the best quarter of the fiscal year for Microsoft.

Not all the news was good, though: revenues for Xbox video game console hardware fell by 42%, and this drop surely helped account for large round of layoffs in Microsoft's gaming division.

Microsoft Q3 earnings 2024

Microsoft's revenues for the third quarter of the 2024 fiscal year were almost as strong as those of the fourth quarter. In April 2024, the company reported overall revenues of $61.9 billion for the months of January, February, and March of that year, a 17% year-over-year increase.

Revenues increased for platforms like LinkedIn and software suites like Office 365, but decreased for some physical device sales. Share prices increased by $2.94 on average. And Xbox "content and services revenue" increased by 62%, this increase coming only a few months after Microsoft's acquisition of the gaming company Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft Q2 earnings 2024

In the months of October, November, and December of 2023, the second quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, revenue was almost the same as the following Q3. Q2 revenues were $62 billion, a 18% YOY increase.

The massive acquisition of Activision Blizzard concluded during the early days of this quarter, with the software company laying out $69 billion to acquire the gaming company. And artificial intelligence was top-of-mind for Nadella, who said in the earnings call that "we've moved from talking about AI to applying AI at scale. By infusing AI across every layer of our tech stack, we're winning new customers and helping drive new benefits and productivity gains across every sector."

Microsoft earnings history

Like most major tech companies, Microsoft spent 2024 adjusting to the post-pandemic slump in what some are calling a tech industry recession.

At the same time, a fiercely competitive AI arms race has proven challenging, even with Microsoft's 2023 launch of Copilot.

In 2020, the peak year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft's annual revenues were $143 billion. 2021 saw an increase to $168 billion, while 2022 saw another jump to $198 billion in revenues. In 2023, Microsoft revenues were $211 billion, and when you add all those quarters of FY24 up, you'll see its 2024 fiscal year revenues were a healthy $245 billion.

• Microsoft employs some 228,000 workers globally.
• Like other large tech companies, Microsoft has implemented mass layoffs in the past.
• Microsoft's post-pandemic layoffs have primarily hit Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and Azure.

A company doesn't reach the half-century mark without a few rounds of layoffs now and then. Microsoft, founded in 1975, is gigantic in terms of revenues and employees and has been known to fire huge numbers of workers en masse from time to time.

In the 2020s, as the pandemic-prompted tech boom started to fade, many companies began doing mass layoffs.

Microsoft's job cuts have been frequent and often unexpected and severe. However, this follows a historical pattern of layoffs at the company going back many years, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.

Has Microsoft engaged in layoffs in the past?

Very much so. In early 2009, as the Great Recession roiled markets and economies all around the globe, Microsoft slashed 1,400 workers on a single January day, simultaneously announcing it would be letting go an additional 3,600 employees over the subsequent 18 months. But that series of layoffs was nothing compared to what would come a half decade later.

In 2014, Microsoft culled 14% of its workforce

Shortly after taking the reins as Microsoft's CEO in February 2014, Satya Nadella initiated a truly seismic round of firings. That year, the company committed to laying off 18,000 employees, both full-time and contract workers, which amounted to a 14% reduction of its global workforce, ending the coveted Microsoft careers of a staggering number of people.

2023 was a tough year for Microsoft employees

In 2023, Microsoft cut hundreds of employees from its own Xbox brand. But that was nothing compared to what would happen around the company. All told, it fired an estimated 10,000 people across myriad divisions, which was about 5% of its total workforce.

2024 saw more layoffs, especially in gaming divisions

Mere months after completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft dismissed nearly 2,000 employees of the gaming division in January 2024. Then, in the summer, the company announced plans to cut around 1,500 more employees, largely from its Azure cloud computing division, though ultimately only about 1,000 people were let go.

In mid-September 2024, Microsoft laid off 650 workers from Xbox, pushing the number of employees let go from its gaming arms to nearly 3,000 people for the year.

Microsoft currently employs some 228,000 people worldwide, across all divisions.

Why do companies engage in layoffs?

In the simplest terms possible, layoffs are a cost-cutting measure taken by a company's leadership to save money.

They may result from a broad economic turndown affecting the entire economy or from the failure or termination of a single project or product within the company. They may also result from a change of corporate leadership or a merger or acquisition.

Being laid off is different than being fired for poor work performance (or abuses such as fraud, embezzlement, or stealing corporate secrets) and is not a reflection on the talent or work ethic of those terminated, but it's still a jarring change for those who find themselves out of a job.

• I compared roast-beef sandwiches at Jimmy John's, Jersey Mike's, and Subway to find the best one.
• The bread at Jimmy John's never fails to impress me, but I thought the rest of the sub was bland.
• My Subway sub was made with remarkably crisp produce, but Jersey Mike's easily had the best meat.

I could probably eat a sandwich for lunch every day for the rest of my life.

On my quest to compare popular chains, I put roast-beef subs from Jimmy John's, Jersey Mike's, and Subway to the test.

I ordered each sandwich on the shop's standard bread and piled them with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayo.

Here's how the roast-beef sandwiches stacked up.

Subway is easily one of the biggest fast-food chains.

Subway is one of the largest global chains, but its ubiquity hasn't necessarily led to an overly positive public opinion.

I'll admit that I've been let down by the restaurant more than once, but nonetheless, I count myself among its fans. Because Subway has over 30,000 locations globally, it's still nice to know I can probably grab something familiar at one, no matter where in the world I am.

I ordered a 12-inch roast-beef sub for $16.28, which breaks down to about $1.36 an inch.

The produce at Subway tasted surprisingly fresh.

Subway employees can sometimes go a little heavy on the sauce, but the few stripes of mayo I got were well-portioned.

The bread and cheese were nothing special, but the roast beef was actually pretty tasty — I just wish there was more of it.

The produce truly stood out here. The tomatoes were thickly cut and actually had good flavor, and the lettuce tasted fresh and crisp.

I'd argue that roast beef should be the star of a roast-beef sandwich, but I'm certainly not mad at the Subway sub.

Jimmy John's Big John sandwich was next on my list.

Jimmy John's is a Midwest staple that's spread to over 2,000 locations across the US. It's perhaps most famous for its fresh-baked bread.

I ordered a regular (8-inch) Big John but paid $1 extra to add provolone cheese. The total came to $11.41, or about $1.43 an inch.

The bread makes the meal at Jimmy John's.

Sadly, I thought my roast-beef sandwich from Jimmy John's tasted rather bland overall.

It needed a bit more meat, the meat needed a bit more salt, the cheese was all but undetectable, and the veggies faded into the background.

You'd think that would mean I didn't enjoy this sandwich, but that wasn't the case because of one thing: the bread.

Jimmy John's French bread is good enough to be enjoyed on its own with just some butter or perhaps a spread of Dijon mustard. It readily elevates what would've been an underwhelming sandwich into a perfectly decent meal.

Jersey Mike's served up freshly sliced meat.

New Jersey-based chain Jersey Mikes has over 2,000 locations throughout the US and Canada.

It's famous for building sandwiches with freshly sliced cold cuts, and it was the only chain where I watched an employee slice my roast beef seconds after I placed my order.

My No. 6 (roast beef and provolone) 7-inch sub cost me $12.36, or about $1.77 an inch.

My Jersey Mike's sandwich reminded me of one from a mom-and-pop deli.

The roast beef piled onto my Jersey Mike's sandwich was well over an inch thick. I pulled a few pieces of meat out to try on its own and found that it tasted high quality, too

The provolone cheese also had good flavor, but I didn't think there was enough lettuce, and the tomatoes tasted a bit bland.

However, the biggest issue I had with the sandwich was the rather sloppy, messy assembly. It was difficult to hold together as a cohesive unit, and the mayo was slapped on too heavily and unevenly.

I haven't ordered this enough to know if it was a one-off problem or a consistent problem with the chain's sandwich assembly.

There were pros and cons to each sandwich — I wish I could combine them.

The generous portion of roast beef and the quality of the meat at Jersey Mike's easily would've made it my favorite sandwich had it been assembled with more care.

However, as it is, there were things I liked and disliked about each sub. Jimmy John's sandwich tasted pretty bland despite its amazing bread, and Subway's felt underfilled but had lovely tomatoes and lettuce.

It would be divine if I could combine the meat from Jersey Mike's and the produce from Subway on the bread from Jimmy John's.

• I tried classic club sandwiches at Subway, Jimmy John's, and Jersey Mike's to find the best one.
• Jimmy John's and Jersey Mike's impressed me with their bread and meat, respectively.
• My Subway sandwich was somewhat of a letdown for me, largely because I felt the portions were small.

I love sandwiches, and if I had to pick just one to eat for the rest of my life, I'd choose the club.

In my book, a club sandwich consists of bread, mayo, turkey, lettuce, tomato, and sometimes bacon. However, it can also be made with other meats, like ham or chicken.

I set out to try Subway, Jersey Mike's, and Jimmy John's take on the classic sub to see which popular chain serves the best club.

Here's how they stacked up.

I started my club-sandwich journey at Jersey Mike's.

Jersey Mike's started serving sandwiches in the 1950s, and as its name suggested, the original location was in New Jersey. Now, however, it has over 2,000 shops across the US and Canada.

Jersey Mike's club sub consists of turkey, ham, provolone, applewood-smoked bacon, and mayo. I added lettuce and tomato since they were also included in the photo on the website.

My 7-inch sub cost me $11.57.

Jersey Mike's piled on the meat.

The turkey and ham were stacked high on the club sub — the pile was easily an inch thick, and that didn't even include the bacon strips. The meat was shaved thin and tasted fresh.

The tomato slices were a good size, and the mayo wasn't slathered on too heavily.

Unfortunately, the wheat bread didn't seem particularly fresh or soft to me. I also wasn't thrilled with how readily the finely chopped lettuce fell out of the sandwich.

Despite those minor flaws, I'd 100% order Jersey Mike's club again.

Next on my list was Jimmy John's.

Like Jersey Mike's, Jimmy John's has more than 2,000 locations, but its roots are in the Midwest. The first shop opened in Illinois in the 1980s.

Jimmy John's country club features turkey, ham, provolone, lettuce, tomato, and mayo. My 8-inch sandwich cost $11.97.

I thought Jimmy John's club had the best bread.

Jimmy John's French bread, which is the default unless you change it, is sublime. Maybe it was made shortly before I placed my order, but it seemed unusually fresh for a fast-food joint.

I could've enjoyed it with a pat of butter instead of toppings, but I was glad for all the other ingredients.

Although it didn't have bacon, the meat and cheese were cut thicker than Jersey Mike's, and the cheese was more flavorful.

I also appreciated the fresh veggies. The lettuce was chopped but not veritably minced, so it didn't slide off the sandwich as easily.

My country club had a bit too much mayo, so if I ordered it again, I'd definitely specify the amount. Aside from that, the sandwich was pretty much perfect.

I ended my sandwich quest at Subway.

Unlike the other two chains, which only operate out of the US and Canada, Subway is a global sandwich behemoth with tens of thousands of locations.

I'm an unabashed fan and take comfort in knowing that wherever I travel, there's probably some familiar food nearby.

That said, I don't usually order its oven-roasted turkey and ham sandwich, which is the closest thing it has to a club. You pick your own toppings at Subway, so I added mayo, provolone cheese, lettuce, and tomato.

Subway's standard sub was the smallest of the three, at 6 inches, but it was also cheaper. I paid $8.68.

For me, Subway's take on the classic sub was a mild disappointment.

I wish I'd added a lot more toppings because this was the most diminutive sandwich of the trio by far.

There wasn't much meat, just two pieces of cheese, and the veggie portions were modest. In my opinion, the meat was also a bit less flavorful than the others.

Adding bacon would've helped, but it wasn't on the basic sandwich and it would've cost extra. I think I'd rather stick with one of my usual Subway orders anyway.

All three chains had their own take on a club, but some were better than others.

Although none of the sandwiches ticked all of my boxes, Jimmy John's and Jersey Mike's came pretty close.

Both chains offered substantial subs loaded with meats, which were particularly flavorful at Jersey Mike's. Plus, Jimmy John's had the best bread.

The club I made at Subway, by comparison, fell flat. It was smaller, had fewer toppings, and didn't pack much flavor, so I probably wouldn't order it again. However, I'll still return to the chain for other subs.