How to Open PowerPoint as a Show Only

A PowerPoint show can be displayed without starting the editing environment.

Many PowerPoint users are accustomed to building their presentations using the editing tools and then displaying them in the same fashion. Starting your PowerPoint software and then loading in your presentation just to show it gives you as the presenter an air of inexperience. PowerPoint can save its files in such a way that you can immediately launch the presentation in a single step, setting a much more professional tone.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft PowerPoint

Instructions

1. Open the presentation that you want to turn into a PowerPoint show in the editing environment.

2. Click "File" on the Ribbon menu. Click "Save As" on the menu panel. At the bottom of the "Save As" dialog, change the File Type to "PowerPoint Show - .ppsx".

3. Close PowerPoint.

4. Double-click on the presentation file you saved with the .ppsx extension. It will open directly into the presentation rather than displaying the editing tools.

Tips & Warnings

• A full PowerPoint installation or the PowerPoint viewer must be installed on any computer that is to display the PowerPoint show. The PowerPoint viewer allows the display of presentations, but does not support the editing of the files. It is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=048dc840-14e1-467d-8dca-19d2a8fd7485

References

• Jan's Illustrated Computer Literacy 101: Advanced PowerPoint -- Save As
• "2007 Microsoft Office System Inside Out"; John Pierce Ed.; 2007