If you’re sending your PowerPoint presentation to colleagues or friends, or if you're running it in a booth or kiosk, you might want people to immediately watch your presentation as a slide show instead of seeing the slides in edit mode. Save your PowerPoint presentation as a PowerPoint Show (a .ppsx file) so it automatically starts the slide show when the file is opened.

Make a slide show that starts automatically when opened

  1. Select File > Save as (or Save a Copy).

  2. Click More options.

  3. Browse to the folder where you want to save your presentation.

  4. In the File name box, type a name for your presentation.

  5. Under Save as type, select PowerPoint Show.

    Save your presentation as a PowerPoint Show.

The file is saved as a .ppsx file. When the file is double-clicked, it opens as a slide show.

Edit a .ppsx file

  1. In PowerPoint, click File > Open.

  2. Browse to the .ppsx file, and open it.

Saving a presentation as a PowerPoint Show (.ppsx file) isn't available in PowerPoint for the web.

To start a slide show in PowerPoint for the web, open the file, and on the Slide Show tab of the ribbon, select Play from Beginning.

To start a slide show, on the View tab of the ribbon select Play From Beginning.

(If you've turned off the Simplified Ribbon, you don't have a Slide Show tab; instead use the View tab to start Presenter Coach.)

For more details on running a slide show, see Present your slide show in PowerPoint for the web.

See Also

Set the speed and timing of transitions

Create a self-running presentation

Record a slide show with narration and slide timings

Turn your presentation into a video

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