If you'd like to free your PowerPoint presentations from the confines of Microsoft PowerPoint, say hello to Wondershare's PPT2DVD Pro. This application greatly simplifies the task of converting your PowerPoint content into a video file that you can burn to DVD, share on the Web, or view on numerous portable devices.

And that's it. It takes almost no time to create a slick, polished video that retains all of the transitions, sounds, animations, and video clips that you included in your original presentation. If you have an older version of PowerPoint and need to create presentations that you can play back worry-free, PPT2DVD Pro is an indispensible tool. In PowerPoint 2010, however, Microsoft includes an option for saving a presentation as a Windows Media Movie (.wmv) file. Microsoft's tool doesn't include as many options as Wondershare's product does, and it lacks the ability to fine-tune the video for viewing on a specific device. Nevertheless, moving to PowerPoint 2010, which is included even in the $150 Home and Student version of Microsoft's Office suite, could be a more cost-effective option.

--Liane Cassavoy