Microsoft PowerPoint has dramatically changed the way in which academic and business presentations are made. Suppose you need to create PowerPoint DVDs, aside from being very popular, the most common reasons that users want to burn PowerPoint slides to DVD are usability, portability, and storage. Since DVD is fast becoming the preferred video format for all kinds of consumer applications, as well as computer peripherals, saving ppts to DVD makes good sense for storing and sharing them with others. PC-created DVDs can be shown on other PCs that support DVD or on consumer DVD players. (and, of course, create some for your own archiving and enjoyment).

Here I recommend presenters to use the PowerPoint DVD authoring and burning software. What I mean by this is that instead of simply packing their presentation to a CD or DVD and thereby needing to transfer or install it to another laptop in an emergency, burn a true DVD movie disc with most of your content and narration record, so that your boss or your friends can show it on a standard DVD player or leave it behind for a client or audience after the show.

The DVD movie disc can include an interactive menu linked to any video you want to present, and after you output your PowerPoint slides as still images (File > Save As and change the file type to BMP, JPG or TIF), you can import these into the DVD as slideshows. And with DVD/VCD, you can attach music and narration to accompany your slides show, which will really add to the ambience.

A disc burned correctly like that in a DVD burner will play through most consumer DVD drives and is easy to set up connected to a computer monitor or even a large-screen TV.

Many programs will enable you to create and burn such a PowerPoint DVD disc. At the low end there's ProDVD's PowerPoint DVD Maker. If you want a more practical tool, I recommend Wondershare PPT2DVD (http://www.ppt-to-dvd.com)