Posted on: Tuesday, December 28, 2004

HELP DESK
Creating slide shows is a snap

By Kim Komando

Want to share holiday photos with family and friends? If you have Microsoft Office, it includes PowerPoint. And that's all you need for a cool slide show on a CD or for the Web.

Before you begin, move the picture files you want to include into one folder. That will help keep things organized.

Then go to PowerPoint.

If you want to display only pictures with captions, use the photo album creator. PowerPoint 2002 and 2003 include this feature. PowerPoint 2000 owners can download it at office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/CD010225941033.aspx.

Start PowerPoint and click Insert, Picture, New Photo Album. This opens the Photo Album dialog box.

Click File/Disk and navigate to the folder with your picture files on your hard drive. Select the files and click Insert. If you want to scan pictures or transfer some from your digital camera, click the Camera/Scanner button.

Next go to Picture Layout, choose one, two or four pictures per slide, with or without titles. There is a fit-to-slide layout as well. Select a framing option to make your pictures stand out. Layout, captions and frames apply across the entire slide show.

To change the order of the pictures, click the picture's file name. Move the picture up or down using the arrow keys.

Once you have everything arranged, click Create. The file names are automatically inserted as the captions. To change that, click on the caption box.

When done, click File, Save As. In Save As Type, click the down arrow and select PowerPoint Show.

To burn a CD in PowerPoint 2003, click File, Package for CD. Follow the prompts. A copy of PowerPoint 2003 Viewer will be included automatically; recipients can use it to play your slide show if they don't have PowerPoint.

Older versions of PowerPoint have a similar feature, called Pack and Go. Click File, Pack and Go and follow the prompts.

To publish your presentation on the Web, open your slide show, click File, Save as Web page, then Publish. You can set it to publish specific slides and to support different browser versions. After choosing your options, select Publish.

Picture, audio and video files can be huge, so use this option only if you have a few pictures and not much else.

There are obviously alternatives to PowerPoint. Some are better at creating and sharing slide shows. But none is likely to be easier.