What is a PPT File?

So just what is that PPT file you’ve got sitting on your desktop or in your Inbox?

PPT files are PowerPoint files. They are used to display slideshows and similar media presentation. Inside your PPT file you can expect photos, text, charts, movies, sound effects, graphs, and a variety of other possible media.

PowerPoint presentations are incredibly popular for business presentations, lectures, webcasts, and even for personal use – creating photo slideshows and similar projects.

PPT files, typically, are created with Microsoft PowerPoint. There are also a number of other programs which allow you to create slideshows, one of the most popular being StarOffice. In order to open and edit your PPT, either of these programs can be used.

Microsoft has also created the PowerPoint Viewer, which can be downloaded from their website.

FileCure, as described elsewhere on this site, is another popular way of opening your PPT file. FileCure can be downloaded for free here, or on the sidebar to the right.

PowerPoint presentations allow people to easily display a series of important “slides,” without having to use an actual projector, slide machine, or other cumbersome equipment. The program fairly revolutionized the act of giving presentations with its extreme ease of use.

Also included in PPT files are items called ‘macros,’ short or macro instructions. These are special pieces of media which add helpful and new features to the slideshow.

PowerPoint was originally created in the summer of 1984, by a company called Forethought Inc. In the beginning, the program was called Presenter, and was originally designed for Macintosh. A few years later, the name was changed to PowerPoint, and shortly thereafter the company was bought by Microsoft.

Microsoft continues to develop PowerPoint, and there have been no less than ten different versions since the days of Forethought. In 2007 the Microsoft Office PowerPoint Presentation, as it was now called, began using the new file extension of PPTX.

With all the variation in versions, functionality, and operating systems, PowerPoint files can often be difficult to open. The root cause of this is typically a lack of the required software. To open PPT files, readers are recommended to download FileCure. For more information, please see our page on how to open PPT files.