A system for producing presentations of computer application programs that also allows the inclusion of advertising, or other information, into a presentation and which can be updated by a central ad server. When the presentation is viewed offline, default ads are kept in the presentation. Authoring software is used to create a sequence of screenshot images of an application program to be presented. Each screenshot is a slide in the presentation and is displayed for an interval of time during playback of the presentation. Text description in the form of "bubble text," "memo text," "questions," etc. can be specified along with the position, size and other properties of the text. Characteristics such as cursor shape, speed of movement, starting and ending positions, alignment, etc. can be set, and a "click area" in association with a question, or prompt, to the viewer of the presentation can be specified. After a sequence has been completed, the sequence is compressed into a small self-contained package which includes two files that can be played back without a dedicated engine or specialized application that requires a separate download.