I will admit I also looked at vector programs but there are so many which will not work cross platform for example flash.
As to freeware yes used Open Office a lot and can't really see the advantage of Word but using VBA rather than Java means that some times the work will not transfer as it should.
As to Power Point well it seems rather limited. Pictures to EXE does a far better job and will run on any PC without having Power Point or any other program loaded. However turning into Mpeg takes a long time.
The whole idea of giving a presentation rather than simple slide show appeals to me. This
http://www.ericmark.talktalk.net/Welsh-Highland-Railway.html was produced with the idea of combining two photographs with text together about to change ISP so may be short lived link.
Using many programs from Photoshop to process images to dreamweaver to write the page but there is no magic answer and the Java script is hand written as is the CSS and it takes a lot of time to produce the page where as I could use something like Minus not sure if this link
http://gw7mgw.minus.com/ will work on other peoples PC but simple to add pictures the same applies to photo-bucket flicker and face-book.
So is it really worth all the effort to write a presentation rather than use the ready made free sites?