Many years back, Government agencies and private organizations used photos and image Slide shows to show their new plans and accomplishments to press and others. In this old method which used a slide projector, once the slide is created you cannot make any changes or modifications to the slide content. Without the Slide projector these slides were useless. But with the invent of computers this practice has become obsolete. With Presentation software and applications such as Microsoft Power point, the slide projection method is no more in use.

There are many Presentation applications. The more popular of them are Action, Harvard Graphics, Freelance Graphics, Power Point. It is undeniable that Microsoft's PowerPoint is the most popular among them all. The term 'Slide Show' is used in these presentation software. Every screen shot that is displayed on the screen is called a Slide. After creating many such slides you can store it as a single file. This file is called the presentation file. In PowerPoint .ppt is the extension of a presentation file. You can also call a presentation file as a slide show.

Power point has a 'Auto Content Wizard' feature. If you use this wizard and select the appropriate options (eg. Projects, Personal, Sales/Marketing) the wizard will show many slide shows under these headings. If you choose any of them and answer the questions that the wizard asks then the slide show is ready within minutes.

PowerPoint gives many themes and templates. Each template has a different background and fonts. You can select your preferred theme and start creating your presentation slide show. In each slide type the appropriate content.

PowerPoint has a 'Blank Presentation' option. If you choose this you will get slides with White background. Most experienced people use this option. In this you create slides according to your design and content. If required later you can apply a theme to this slide show. When you apply a theme to a blank presentation, all the content will be automatically changed to the selected theme.

Anybody can create a presentation easily. If you have family photos, scan it and save it in your computer as images. Or transfer from your digital camera to your computer. You can create a presentation using these photos and show it to your guests and friends.

In a single slide you can many objects. For example in a slide you have inserted a photo and below the photo you have added some text to explain about the photo then you have two objects in your slide. One is the image and the other is the text. You can make these objects in a slide appear in the screen at different intervals and different styles. This is called Animation. Between two slides, if the first slide is removed and the second slide is shown, you can remove and insert slides using different styles. For example the first slide enters from the left of your screen and moves to the right and disappears and after that the second slide emerges from a single dot in the center and zooms up to occupy the entire screen. This is called 'Transition' between slides. In your slide show presentation you can create Animation and transition techniques to make your presentation interesting and rich.

For home user as well as for Office user, here is a basic PowerPoint tutorial

• First determine the objective of the presentation. For example are you introducing a new product of your company? or you presenting a project proposal? First determine this objective. Your whole presentation should follow this objective.
  
• Also determine your target viewers. For example your audience is going to be 'Engineers' and your slide show is about marketing fo your product, your presentation will be boring to your audience.
  
• Next, make a list of what images, charts, audio or video that you already have and want to include in your presentation. Then copy all these files in a single folder in your computer.
  
• Now plan your story line. What you want to say first, and what should follow, what should be your conclusion. Your slides also should follow this story line. If you say something then move to something else then again move back to the previous slides then the audience will be irritated.
  
• Then choose the right template. Do some trial and error and see many templates to decide on the final one.
  
• Do not use the same style to show a big paragraph. Use different styles and better still break it and split it into more slides.
  
• Do not overuse animations. If you do, then the audience will be distracted and their concentration will move to animation rather than your content. In all slides do not use more that two animations.
  
• In the same presentation do not use different transition styles. Use the same transition style throughout your presentation. Otherwise the audience will be distracted.
  
• Do not insert audio into every slide of your presentation. You can include audio in two most important slides of your presentation. Otherwise use a soothing background music all through your presentation.
  
• Do not use all capital letters and do not use many styles or fonts in the same slide. Try to minimise the number of fonts that you use. It is better that you use the same font throughout the slide show. Otherwise it will be very difficult to read.
  
• Now run the show and see if all the slides come out well. If all of them are readable. Go back and modify those slides that are not OK.
  
• If you need to change the order of slides then you can use the 'Slide sorter' to change the order of each slide.
  
• Finally if you are satisfied with the look of the presentation slide show then practice your presentation skills by speaking out together with the slide show atleast two or three times before the actual presentation.
  
  Good luck