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Can I add sound
to my presentation?

 

 

In addition to using slide transition sound effects, you can put sound in your presentation in one of two ways. You can:

- record sound directly into PowerPoint using a microphone;

OR

- import an already existing sound file.

In this lesson, we’ll learn about importing sounds. (See the Recording Sound lesson to learn about recording.)

 

 
 

How do I
import a sound?

 

 

To import a sound into a PowerPoint presentation, follow these steps:

1) Pull down the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, and then click Sound from File:


3) Select the file you wish to import, and click OK.

4) You will be asked the following question:


Click Yes or No. If you click No, the sound will only be played if you click its icon on the slide. If you click Yes, the sound will automatically play when you display the slide. (More information about these and other options can be found in the next section.)

     

7) A picture of a speaker will appear on your slide.

 

 

 
 

How do I play
a sound? Can I automate it?

Whether the sound is imported into PowerPoint or recorded within PowerPoint, once it is in the presentation, you can work with it the same way:

To manually play the sound during the slideshow, click the speaker icon.

Or, you can tell PowerPoint to play the sound automatically at a specified time during the slideshow. PowerPoint calls this “animating” a sound. To do this:

1) Select the sound icon you want to animate.

2) Pull down the Slide Show menu, then click Custom Animation.

3) Click the Multimedia Settings tab. The dialog box should look like this:

   

 

       

4) In the Check to animate slide objects area, put a check next to the sound that is selected. (In the graphic above, you would check “Media 3”.) “Play using animation order” is then checked automatically.

5) Select whether you want the slide show to continue while the sound plays, or whether you want it to pause.

6) If you want the sound to loop (i.e., repeat over and over), click the More Options button, check “Loop until stopped” and then click OK.

7) Click the Order & Timing tab. The dialog box should look like this:

   

 

       

On the Order & Timing tab, you can set the order of the slide’s animations. In the example above, first the title would appear, then the slide text, and then the sound would play. If the sound were moved to the top of the animation order, this would tell PowerPoint to begin playing the sound before any text appears on the slide.

8) Using the Move buttons, move the sound to where you want it in the animation order.

9) In the Start animation area, select “On mouse click” if you want the sound to wait until you click the mouse to play; select “Automatically” if you want to specify a time interval after which the sound will automatically play. In the example above, the sound would automatically play four seconds after the text appeared on the slide.

10) When you are satisfied, click OK.

 
  TIP: When you import a sound file into a PowerPoint presentation, the sound is not saved within the PowerPoint document. Instead, PowerPoint references that sound file. For this reason, you must be sure to keep the original sound file with the presentation if you want it to work.
 

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Copyright © 2002, Bloomsburg University Virtual Training Help Center.
All rights reserved. This material may not be used without written permission.
Contact Dr. Mary Nicholson at mjnich@bloomu.edu

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