Section 1.9. Running a Presentation

1.9. Running a Presentation

Chapter 7 shows you everything you need to know about setting up and running special types of presentations: for example, recording narration, hiding certain slides, and creating stand-alone presentations that run on kiosks .

But for running through a basic presentation on your very own computer, the process is simple:

1. Press F5 or click the Slideshow icon you see at the bottom of the screen, as shown in Figure 1-27.

   PowerPoint replaces your workspace with a full-screen version of your slideshow, beginning with the currently selected slide.

   

   Figure 1-27. Clicking the Slideshow icon at the bottom of your workspace is one of the easiest ways to run your presentation.

   
   

   UP TO SPEED
   PowerPoint 2007 File Types

   PowerPoint 2007 (and Office 2007 more generally ) introduces a slew of new file types, complete with unfamiliar file extensions. The Introduction describes these file types in more detail, and Chapter 7 describes why you'd want to choose one over the other. But here they are, in a nutshell :

   • .pptx (PowerPoint 2007 presentation). Most of the time, you want to save your file in this format.

   • .potx (PowerPoint 2007 template). Lets you save a presentation as a reusable design template.

   • .potm (PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled design template). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a design template.

   • .ppsx (PowerPoint 2007 show). Lets you save this file as a PowerPoint show that folks can run using the PowerPoint viewer, as described in Chapter 7.

   • .ppsm (PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled show). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a show.

   • .ppam (PowerPoint 2007 add-in). Lets programmers save presentations that actually add to PowerPoint's interface; see Chapter 13.

   • .pptm (PowerPoint 2007 macro-enabled presentation). Lets programmers save presentations that contain VBA macros; see Chapter 14.

   • .thmx (Microsoft Office Theme). Lets you save your presentation as a reusable collection of colors, fonts, and graphic effects so that you can apply it to another PowerPoint slideshow, Word document, or Excel spreadsheet.

   • .ppt (PowerPoint 2003and earlierpresentation). Lets you save your presentation in a form that folks running PowerPoint 2003 can edit.

   In addition to .ppt, earlier versions of PowerPoint handled the following file types (PowerPoint 2007 handles them, too):

   • .pot (PowerPoint 2003and earlierdesign template). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a design template that folks running PowerPoint 2003 can edit and apply.

   • .pps (PowerPoint 2003and earliershow). Lets you save a presentation as a show that folks can run using the PowerPoint viewer.

   • .ppa (PowerPoint 2003and earlieradd-in). Lets programmers save a macro-filled presentation as a design template that folks running PowerPoint 2003 can edit and apply.

   • .mht/.mhtml/.htm/.html (Web pages). Lets you save your slides as a series of Web pages.

   • .gif, .jpg, .png, .tif, .bmp, .wmf, .emf (Image files). Lets you save your slides as a series of image files.

   • rtf (Rich text format [word processing file]). Lets you save your slides as editable text.

   
   

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   Tip: Pressing Shift+F5 and clicking the Slideshow icon both tell PowerPoint to run your slideshow beginning at the current slide (not necessarily the first slide). To run your slideshow from the beginning, you have three choices: press F5, click the Slideshow icon, or select Slide Show Start Slide Show From Beginning.

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   Click the forward and backward arrows that appear at the bottom of the screen (Figure 1-28) to step through your presentation. (Figure 1-28 describes how to end the presentation before the last slide.)

   After the last slide, PowerPoint displays a black screen containing the words "End of slide show, click to exit."

   

   Figure 1-28. PowerPoint displays ghosted controls (Back, Ink, Slide, and Next) when you run a presentation. Mousing over these controls highlights them so you can see where to click. To end your slideshow immediately without having to flip through every last slide, you have two choices: either hit Esc or click the Slide icon and then, from the menu that appears, choose End Show.

   
   

2. Click anywhere on the screen (or press the Space bar or Enter).

   PowerPoint returns you to your workspace.