PowerPoint allows users to start a presentation in several ways, including through the Start menu or Office button. It offers multiple views for creating and presenting slides, such as Normal, Slide Sorter, and Slide Show views. There are nine available slide layouts that determine how content appears on slides, including options like Title Only or Title and Content. Users can work with slides by changing layouts, duplicating slides, reordering slides, and hiding slides. Text can be inserted and formatted using options like fonts, bullets, and notes.