In PowerPoint, the standard operations, such as saving work, are just like in any other Office application. To save, click the Save button on the Standard toolbar or choose File ⇨ Save. To save the presentation under a different name or location, or as a different type, use File ⇨ Save As. No surprises there. In most cases you'll want to save PowerPoint presentation files in the default format: Presentation (*.ppt). There are lots of alternatives available, though, and Table 1-1 below summarizes them. If you decide you want to save in PowerPoint format, you have three choices: Presentation (PowerPoint 2003) format is very versatile. It is compatible with all PowerPoint versions 97 and above (97, 2000, 2002, and 2003), and it preserves all features. PowerPoint 97-2003 and 95 format adds compatibility for PowerPoint 95 to the mix, but it also greatly increases the file size. That's because in 97 and higher, graphics are compressed, but in 95 they ar...

As with anything, it's easier to work with PowerPoint when you can clearly see what you're doing. Here are some tips for making the display show the elements you want to see. Customizing the Normal View Panes In Normal view, you can adjust the sizes of the panes relative to one another by dragging the borders between them. To get rid of one of the panes entirely, drag the border between it and the adjacent pane so that it is as small as possible. For example,  I've dragged the bar between the Slide pane and the Notes pane down all the way to the bottom, so the Notes pane is completely hidden, and I've increased the width of the Outline tab's section. The Outline/Slides pane also has an X in its top-right corner that you can click to close it. To restore any panes you've hidden, reselect Normal view from the View menu. This does not restore the sizes of any panes you resized, nor does it reopen the task pane. (Choose View ⇨ Task Pane t...

PowerPoint is a fairly typical Windows-based program in many ways. It contains the same basic elements that you expect to see: title bar, menu bar, window controls, and so on. And like all Office 2003 applications, it has a task pane that provides shortcuts for common activities. Here's a quick rundown of some basic elements, which are shown in Figure: Toolbars: The Standard and Formatting toolbars appear at the top, and the Drawing toolbar at the bottom, by default. Other toolbars come and go automatically as needed, and they can also be displayed or hidden by right-clicking any visible toolbar and choosing from the menu that appears. Task pane : This pane pops up on its own for certain activities as well as when PowerPoint starts. You can also display or hide it manually from the View menu. Slide pane : This is where the PowerPoint slide(s) that you are working on appear.

I was talking to a new acquaintance recently at a party who had just discovered PowerPoint. As a graphic artist back in the 1980s for one of the "big three" TV networks, she had spent many years creating presentation graphics and overlays for commercials and TV shows. She was so excited about PowerPoint's capabilities! "With PowerPoint, I can do in 2 minutes by myself what it would take a staff of 20 people a whole week to do," she told me. That's PowerPoint's appeal, in a nutshell. It does all these amazing graphical things that make presentation graphics really shine, and it does them so easily and quickly that it puts the power of creation in almost anyone's hands. PowerPoint is a very popular tool among people who give presentations as part of their jobs, as well as for their support staff. With PowerPoint, you can create visual aids that will help get the message across to an audience, whatever that message may be and whateve...