Add music to PowerPoint presentation

Most versions of PowerPoint support the following audio file formats: WAV, MP3, WMA, AIF.

However, there is a difference in working with the file formats:

WAV: files can be embedded in presentation, but will increase it's size (1 min of audio = 10MB). It is possible to embed WAV files that are up to and no more than 50MB in size.

MP3, WMA, AIF:
Such audio files can only be linked, but not embedded into presentation. Put audio files into the same folder as a presentation and use them together with project.

To distribute presentation on CD/DVD copy a presentation file along with audio files. To send a presentation via e-mail use zip archive to store all project files and e-mail them.

If you want music to play throughout the whole presentation, select the slide to which you want to add an audio track (by default a first slide), then choose the instruction for your version of PowerPoint.

After you add a sound to the presentation a small speaker icon will appear in the center of the slide.

Let's take a closer look how is possible to adjust the audio playing options in PowerPoint.

Select audio by clicking on speaker icon. On the Main Menu, click Sound Tools -> Options and you will see the Sound Options panel:

You can listen to the audio preview, setup slide show volume (recommended to select Medium or Low value at Slide Show Volume) or change sound options:

• Hide During Slide Show — audio icon will be hided during presentation.
• Loop Until Stopped — audio will play looping sound until it stops by the clicking or by the ending of presentation.
• Play Sound:
• Automatically — start playing at the beginning of slide or presentation
• When Clicked — start playing by click on sound icon during presentation.
• Play across Slides — play audio through the whole presentation or from the slide to slide.
• Max Sound File Size — if you are working with WAV file, you can also setup max file size (in kilobytes) to embed into presentation. All you need is enter a number that is bigger than a size of your audio file. For example: audio file size is 7MB ~ 7000KB, so enter the number 7000.

Select the speaker icon. On the Main Menu select Playback to open the Audio Setup panel:

• Play — listen to an audio preview.
• Add/Remove Bookmark — setup any audio file positions and start playing from these positions
• Trim Audio — cut the audio from the beginning and the end to play a part of file.
• Fade In/Out — start playing the audio with fade in and finish with fade out effects.

• Volume — setup audio volume, louder is not always better.
• Start:
• Automatically — start playing the audio from the beginning of slide or presentation.
• On Click — start playing by click on sound icon during presentation.
• Play across slides — play audio through the whole presentation or across multiple slides. See below for more information.
• Hide During Slideshow — speaker icon will not appear during the presentation.
• Loop Until Stopped — audio will play looping sound until it stops by the double clicking or by the ending of presentation.
• Rewind after Playing — rewind the audio after it has played.

For example, you want complete your presentation with music between 5th and 10th slides.

You can control the start of audio playing with trigger elements such as title or image. Once triggers are setup correctly, audio will play by clicking on them.

The process of recording narration for your presentation is the same for both versions of PowerPoint. It will be great if you have a stand-alone microphone. The quality of built-in microphone recording is lower than the recording outside. Anyway, you can do it:

The recorded narration will be embedded into your PowerPoint presentation file.
Please note that this digital narrative can not be longer than 5 minutes (near 500 words), because of default setting in PowerPoint to embed a WAV files up to 50MB.
It is recommended to record narration outside of PowerPoint and then insert it into presentation an audio file. You may use freeware software like Audacity or something else. Use MP3 files to save a narration — lot less space and they are still good quality.

Hope this simple step-by-step tutorial was helpful for you and gave a great boost to your skills of adding audio files to a PowerPoint presentation. Now it's time to find some good presentation music right here.