Originally posted by cambro:
1. Post in applications forum to avoid being ignored.
2. Use Keynote and make your life easier.
1. Definitely good advice.
2. This doesn't apply to everyone. Keynote is good, but it's not all that yet. There are still things powerpoint does that Keynote needs to do before it can become a full-featured presentation app.
As for you background trouble, do you want the background to appear on all slides? If so, go to 'View>Master>Slide Master' and place the background image there. Go back to normal view (View>Normal) and the image should appear on all new slides.