Newbie to Powerpoint question

[Phil66]

Ello all,


I am new to Powerpoint and basically diving in there and having a mess around. Though most of it appears pretty intuitive, there are a couple of things I would like to know. When I open a new slide there are two text boxes, the second one has the "play" symbol, (a triangle) which can be deleted, what is the purpose of this.

The other thing is, I have put text into the second text box, sometimes it is quite long, the slide goes on to the next slide as soon as the last letter appears. How can I control this? I have change the time in the little box where it says "Advance slide automatically after.." but that doesn't stop it advancing as soon as the text is complete.

Finally (for now lol) how do I save my presentation so I can give it to people and when they click on it, it will just play? At the moment, when I click on it I get the full editing interface.

Using Powerpoint 2003

Thanks so much for you help.

Cheers

Phil