PowerPoint helps you create presentations. These presentations may or may not be presented as slide shows.
Presentation is a more general term. It refers to a sequence of slides that may be presented on paper, transparencies, or in electronic form. A slide show is the electronic form of a presentation. With a slide show you can mix text, animation, sound, and even video.
You will also see these terms used to describe file types. The default file type for a PowerPoint presentation is Presentation (.ppt). You can also save a presentation as a PowerPoint Show (.pps). When you open a file of type PowerPoint Show it will start immediately in slide show view.
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