1. Gather all your digital photos (or scan your non-digital ones) and put them in a folder on your computer.

   Or, make sure all the photos you need are on your digital camera and hooked up to your computer.

2. Find a cool PowerPoint slide design templatedesign template you'd like to use. (I used the Snowflakes design template for this example.)

In step 1, when you chose a design template, a presentation with that template was created. We'll use that as a starting point.

1. On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click New Photo Album.
2. In the Photo Album dialog box, add the pictures you want to appear in your photo album.
   
   You can rearrange the order of the photos using the up and down arrow buttons below the image list.
3. In that same dialog box, you can flip the photos, brighten or darken them, and even adjust the contrast of each one.
4. Under Album Layout, you can choose how many photos you want to appear on each slide. In my example, I've chosen 1 with title.
5. Choose the Frame shape of each photo (the little mockup on the right of that section shows you what each frame shape looks like). I've chosen Beveled.
6. Click the Browse button located next to Design template and choose the template you want to use.

    Note   Even though the design template you chose is showing as your template right now, when you click Create from this dialog box, a new presentation will open with the newly created photo album. That's why you need to choose your design template from this dialog.

7. Click Create.

    Note   If you want to make changes to the photos you've added, or add or remove some, on the Format menu, click Format Photo Album.

8. Add your titles or captions to each slide.
9. Save your file:
   1. Create a folder on your local drive. This will contain all the files you'll be burning onto a CD.
   2. On the File menu, click Save as.
   3. In the File name box, type a name for your photo album.
   4. In the Save as type box, choose PowerPoint Show.

       Note   We're saving it as a "show" instead of a "presentation" so that when your viewers open the photo album, it will start automatically; they won't have to see all the individual slides in Normal or Slide Sorter view. This is supposed to be a magical time of year, remember?

1. In the task pane, click the top right arrow and choose Slide Transition.
2. First, choose the transition you want. You can click on each one to get a little demonstration of how it will look.
   
   

    Note   In my Crabby family example, I've chosen Fade Smoothly because this is how I hope to leave this world one day. If you want to Dissolve or Cut Through Black, that's entirely up to you.

3. Choose the Speed of each slide transition.
4. Under Advance slide, if you want your slide show to advance automatically, deselect On mouse click, and select Automatically after and then choose how long you want your viewers to view each slide. Three seconds seems long enough.
5. In my example, I decided to Apply to All Slides. You can choose a different transition for each slide but keep your audience in mind. Sometimes a little animation goes a long way.
6. Save your file. (Do this often. You've heard me harp about this before, but it really is a good practice.)

Now, I've chosen not to add music to my slide show. However, if you want to thrill your loved ones with traditional carols, personal recorded messages, or some other audio piece you'd like to include, you can read about how to do that in the See Also section of this column.

If your viewers have PowerPoint, they just need to double-click the name of your photo album to view it. For your recipients who don't have PowerPoint, you're going to include a handy-dandy download called the Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer.

1. To download the PowerPoint 2003 Viewer, click the Download button, click Save, and save it to the folder you created the first time you saved the photo album.
2. Create a text file that will instruct your users how to proceed once they stick the CD into their computer. Then save it to that folder we created. It could look something like this, and you can create it in Notepad: