Adding Sound Files To A Power Point Presentation

Topic Overview:

You will be exploring the use of sound files in multimedia in various readings (tutorials and tips), and determining the appropriate types of files to use in a multimedia presentation.

Topic Table of Contents:

Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia: Sound
General Tips for Using Sound in Presentations
PowerPoint Sound Tutorials and Tips

Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia: Sound

Review any of the previous Copyright and Fair Use information, if necessary.

In terms of Sound, The Fair Use Guidelines for Multimedia state:

For Music, Lyrics, and Music Video:

  • Up to 10%, but in no event more than 30 seconds…of music and lyrics from an individual musical work.
  • Any alterations to a musical work shall not change the basic melody or the fundamental character of the work.

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General Tips for Using Sound in Presentations (Source: Presenters University )

  • Keep sound and music clips brief.
  • Keep volume levels consistent.
  • Suit the mood of the music to the mood of the message.
  • Invest in quality music clips.
  • Do not use copyrighted music without the proper license or stay within the Fair Use Guidelines.
  • Use good quality speakers.

Tips for Use of Sounds:

  • Do not repeat information in multiple formats. For instance, if you write a textual explanation, do not create an accompanying sound file with the same information.
  • When creating sound files, do not read from a script. This will keep these sound files more natural.
  • Entering sound should be the last thing you do in a presentation.

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PowerPoint Sound Tutorials and Tips

All of these tips and directions are assuming that your computer has a sound card and a way to listen to sound (speakers or headphones). Directions are for PowerPoint 97 and 2000.

The following links are to help you navigate this section on PowerPoint Sound:

Types of Sound Files, and Supported Sound Files

.wav = most commonly used sound file format for Windows
.snd = common sound file format for Macintosh
.aif or .aiff = the WAV equivalent for Macintosh computers (Audio Interchange File Format)
.mid = MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface files) or digital musical files.

Other sound file formats include mpeg (.mp2 or .mp3) and RealAudio (.ra or .ram)

PowerPoint 97 can support sound files with the following extensions: .wav, .mid, .rmi, and .aiff. PowerPoint 2000 can support sound files with the following extensions: .wav, .mid, .rmi, .aif, .aifc, .aiff, .au.

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Inserting a Sound File

  1. In Slide View, go to the slide where you want the sound to play (or begin playing).
  2. From the Insert menu select Movies and Sounds, then choose Sound From File.
  3. Locate your Sounds folder, click once on the desired sound, then click OK.
  4. Normally, you would click YES to the question, “Do you want your sound to play automatically in the slide show?”
  5. From the Slide Show menu select Custom Animation, or right-click on the sound icon and select Custom Animation to change how you want your sound to play.
  6. You may move the sound icon to the bottom of the screen, or even off the screen.

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Where to Save Sound Files

When you insert sound into a PowerPoint presentation, it does not actually become a part of that presentation like a picture does. Instead, you are creating a link to that original sound file. Unless you never take your presentations off of the computer where you create them, you should keep the PowerPoint presentation--and the sound files you are using in that presentation--in the same folder. PowerPoint will always look for the sound in the folder that contains the presentation, so this is the best place to put them. Then when you copy the folder to a disk, you have everything you need. The alternative is to always use "Pack and Go" to copy a presentation to another location—which automatically copies all of your linked files. But that can sometimes be cumbersome and somewhat time consuming to unpack the files at the new location.

To ensure everything you need is saved in the same folder, copy the sounds into that folder as you need them. The following gives directions for the quickest way: (sorry, most of these directions are only for PCs using Windows)

  1. When you find sound files you like on the internet, always save them in the same general location. Suggestions:
    1. Have one main Multimedia folder with a sub-folder for Sound and another for Videos (or Movies). Within the sound folder can be other sub-folders: Music, Sound effects, Human voices, Historical sound clips, etc. Save your sounds in the appropriate sub-folder.
    2. When saving music, if you know how long the music is, rename the file to include that information in the name. For instance, BigBand303.mid would mean it was Big Band music that lasts for 3 minutes and 3 seconds. This type of naming scheme will come in handy when you are later looking for some music of a certain length.
  2. When inserting a sound file (Insert – Movies and Sounds – Sound from File), open the appropriate multimedia sub-folder for the type of sound you want.
  3. To listen to a sound file to be sure it is the correct one, right-click on the file name and left-click to choose Play. Then close the sound player when done.
  1. Instead of clicking OK, right-click on the file you want and select Copy from the menu.
  2. Then change the location of where to Look in--to where your PowerPoint presentation is saved.
  3. Right-click anywhere in the white area of the dialog box once the correct folder is displayed in the "Look in."
  4. Left-click to select Paste.
  5. Your sound file is now still in the original location for later use, as well as in the folder for your PowerPoint presentation.

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Adding Music from a CD

  1. Place the music CD-ROM in the computer's CD-ROM drive.
  2. On some computers, the CD-ROM will begin playing automatically. Stop the CD-ROM and close the CD-ROM window.
  3. Go to the slide where you want the music to begin.
  4. From the Insert menu select Movies and Sounds. Select Play CD Audio Track and a new window will open.
  5. Select the Start Track time and End Track time.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Normally, you would click YES to the question, “Do you want your sound to play automatically in the slide show?”

  1. You should see a small CD icon on the slide. From the Slide Show menu select Custom Animation or right-click on the CD icon and select Custom Animation.
  2. From the Slide Show menu select Custom Animation, or right-click on the sound icon and select Custom Animation to change how the music from the CD will play (through several slides, etc.).

You may move the CD icon to the bottom of the screen, or even off the screen. You must have the CD in the drive when you present your PowerPoint presentation in order for it to play since the music is not embedded in the PowerPoint presentation. The only easy way around that is to record a narration while the music is playing, but that will not produce the same sound quality.

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Record a Voice Narration

To do this procedure, you'll need a microphone.

  1. On the Slide Show menu, click Record Narration.
    A dialog box appears showing the amount of free disk space and the number of minutes you can record.
  2. If this is the first time you are recording, do the following:
    Click Set Microphone Level (PowerPoint 2000 only), and follow the directions to set your microphone level. Or click Settings (PowerPoint 97) to adjust the quality of your recording.
  3. Do one of the following:
    To insert the narration on your slides as an embedded object and to begin recording, click OK.
    To insert the narration as a linked object (to keep your PowerPoint file size down), select the Link narrations in check box, and then click OK to begin recording.
  4. Advance through the slide show, and add narration as you go.
    At the end of the show, a message appears.
  5. To save the timings along with the narration, click Yes. To save only the narration, click No.

Notes: (Source: Microsoft PowerPoint Help)

  • When you run the slide show, the narration will automatically play with the show. To run the slide show without narration, click Set Up Show on the Slide Show menu, and then select the Show without narration check box.
  • Because you can't record and play sounds at the same time, while you're recording the narration, you won't hear other sounds you inserted in your slide show.

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Other Directions for Inserting Sound

Microsoft Help is usually quite helpful. For specific information on inserting sound, search on insert sound.

 

Articles/Tutorials on the Web About Using Sound with PowerPoint

Read at least one article/tutorial about using sound:

Adding Sound to a PowerPoint Show
 http://www.presentersuniversity.com/courses/show_tutorials.cfm?RecordID=55
Scroll down to the tutorial. Also includes various recommended sites for Sound Resources.

Sound
http://www.umist.ac.uk/apt/ppclass/dynpp/sound/index.shtml
Explanation and directions of how to use sound in PowerPoint 97, including using Windows sound editors, capturing audio, and more.

PowerPoint 97 & Sound
http://www.vcu.edu/idc/selfstudy/monographs/pp-audio/pp-audio.htm
All you would want to know about PowerPoint and sound.

Creating Multimedia Presentations: A Guide for those using PowerPoint 97
http://www.agocg.ac.uk/brief/ppt.htm
Explanation of file formats for both sound and video, how to insert media, and other multimedia components.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 Online Tutorial
http://www.fgcu.edu/support/office2000/ppt/
A little of everything, including tutorial on Adding Content (Video and Audio).

A Quick Guide to Adding a Background Sound Track to PowerPoint Presentations
http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/it/flash-URLs/ppt-sound.html
How to have music play through your entire slideshow. Good for pictorial presentations.

PowerPoint ’98 for Macintosh
http://belnet.bellevue.k12.wa.us/class/curr.pgs/howto/ppt.html
Complete tutorial, including how to add sound.

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Sound Resources for PowerPoint

There are many places where you can find sound for your PowerPoint presentation. Choosing Sound from Gallery will bring you to the sounds category where Microsoft has provided a variety of midi and wav files for your use. There are even more sounds available from Microsoft's Web site if you click the button that says "Clips from the Web" (PowerPoint 97) or "Clips Online" (PowerPoint 2000). Of course, you have to be connected to the Internet to have that work. Other sound resources can be downloaded from the Web. See, for instance:

WavCentral.com
http://www.wavcentral.com/

Clip Art Review: Sound Clips
 http://www.webplaces.com/html/sounds.htm

FindSounds.com
 http://www.findsounds.com/

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