The beauty of PowerPoint really shines in a large room where slides can be beamed onto a large screen. However, when the need arises, your handheld can provide you with a perfectly adequate theater for a colleague's presentation or the latest whimsy forwarded from a friend. And there's no need to compromise on the orientation of the slides.

To improve viewing on the small screen, PowerPoint Mobile conveniently allows you to adjust not just from portrait to landscape viewing mode, but within landscape between right-handed and left-handed orientations.

One way to get a PowerPoint presentation onto your handheld is simply to connect it to your computer (using USB or Bluetooth, for example) and drag and drop an existing ppt file from your hard drive onto your handheld. (This process may require a conversion, which will happen automatically.)

Then, on the handheld or smartphone, open PowerPoint Mobile, where your ppt file should show up in the opening screen. Click on it, select it or click on "open" to launch the presentation.

When it begins, activate the menu. Choose Show Options.

If you then select Default, PowerPoint will choose what it thinks is the best orientation for the presentation.

But you can select portrait, landscape (right-handed) or landscape (left-handed) as you like. The left and right distinctions will affect which hand has easy access to the controls while you're viewing the presentation.