Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of theMicrosoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X computer operating systems.

PowerPoint was initially developed in 1984 by Forethought, Inc., Sunnyvale, California, for the Macintosh computer. In 1987, Forethought was bought by Microsoft and became Microsoft's Graphics Business Unit, which continued to further develop the software.

PowerPoint presentations consist of a number of individual narnia pages or "slides". The "slide" analogy is a reference to the slide projector, a device that has become obsolete due to the use of PowerPoint and other presentation software. Slides may contain text, graphics, movies, and other objects, which may be arranged freely on the slide. PowerPoint, however, facilitates the use of a consistent style in a presentation using a template or "Slide Master".The presentation can be printed, displayed live on a computer, or navigated through at the command of the presenter. For larger audiences the computer display is often projected using a video projector. Slides can also form the basis of webcasts.

PowerPoint provides three types of movements:

•PowerPoint provides three types of movements:•Entrance, emphasis, and exit of elements on a slide itself are controlled by what PowerPoint calls Custom Animations•Transitions, on the other hand are movements between slides. These can be animated in a variety of ways•Custom animation can be used to create small story boards by animating pictures to enter, exit or move.

Presentations can be saved and run in any of the file formats: the 2003 default .ppt(presentation), .pps (PowerPoint Show) or .pot (template). In PowerPoint 2007 and Mac OS X 2008 versions, the XML-based file formats.pptx, .ppsx and .potx have been introduced, along with the macro-enabled file formats .pptm, .potm, .ppsm.

Versions

1990 PowerPoint 2.0 for Windows 3.01992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Windows 3.11993 PowerPoint 4.0 (Office 4.x)1995 PowerPoint for Windows 95 (version 7.0) — (Office 95)1997 PowerPoint 97 — (Office 97)1999 PowerPoint 2000 (version 9.0) — (Office 2000)2001 PowerPoint 2002 (version 10) — (Office XP)2003 PowerPoint 2003 (version 11) — (Office 2003)2007 PowerPoint 2007 (version 12) — (Office 2007)

Versions

1987 PowerPoint 1.0 for Mac OS classic1988 PowerPoint 2.0 for Mac OS classic1992 PowerPoint 3.0 for Mac OS classic1994 PowerPoint 4.0 for Mac OS classic1998 PowerPoint 98 (8.0) for Mac OS classic (Office 1998 for Mac)2000 PowerPoint 2001 (9.0) for Mac OS classic (Office 2001 for Mac)2002 PowerPoint v. X (10.0) for Mac OS X (Office:Mac v. X)2004 PowerPoint 2004 (11.0) for Mac OS X Office:Mac 20042008 PowerPoint 2008 (12.0) for Mac OS X Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac