What is PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called the PowerPoint, is a software program developed by Microsoft to produce effective presentations. It is a part of Microsoft Office suite. The program comprises slides and various tools like word processing, drawing, graphing and outlining. Thus it can display text, table, chart, graphics and media in the slides.

Features of PowerPoint

Microsoft PowerPoint is a professional presentation program that allows the user to create a "presentation slide" that can be displayed on the computer screen through a projector that is plugged into the computer. There are three main features of the Microsoft PowerPoint window that you need to focus upon while learning PowerPoint. These features are Microsoft Office Button, Quick Access Toolbar and Ribbon. Some of the other important features of PowerPoint are:

• Ribbon: PowerPoint has a new, intuitive user interface called the Ribbon that helps you create better presentations much more quickly than you could in earlier versions of PowerPoint.
• Live Preview: PowerPoint takes advantage of the live preview feature to review your formatting choices before you apply them.
• Create Dynamic Presentations: PowerPoint quickly creates dynamic and great looking presentations using the redesigned user interface and new graphics capabilities.
• Video Capabilities: One of the attractive features of Microsoft PowerPoint is that it allows you to use video in your presentations. With this software, you can embed a video clip into one of your slides and use it during the slideshow. When you embed the video, you can also perform a number of editing functions which will allow you to alter the video to your needs for the presentation.
• Apply a consistent look and feel in one click: PowerPoint themes help you change the look and feel of your entire presentation with just one click. PowerPoint comes with new themes, layouts and Quick Styles that offer you a wide range of options when you are formatting your presentations. Changing the theme of your presentation not only changes the background colour but the colour of a diagram, table etc and even the style of any bullet points within a presentation.
• Sharing: Another feature of Microsoft PowerPoint is the ability to share presentations with other individuals in different locations.
• Dynamically modify shapes, text, and graphics with new tools and effects: You can now manipulate and work with your text, tables, charts and other presentation elements in much richer ways than ever before.
• Special Effects: When creating a presentation, one of your jobs as a presenter is to keep the attention of your audience. If you create a plain presentation without any flair, your subjects may not pay attention for long. With Microsoft PowerPoint, you can use a number of special effects to enhance the quality of your presentations.
• Reduce your document sizes and improve file recovery at the same time: The new compressed Microsoft PowerPoint XML Format offers a dramatic reduction in file size, while offering an improvement in data recovery for damaged files.
• Support other file formats: PowerPoint enables support for other file formats, such as PDF and XPS.