I'm working on a presentation that people are going to be watching on their own as part
of a training program.
I want it to be as interesting as possible, so I think I'm going to add some audio to
spice it up a little.
Start by going to the Insert tab… where you'll find the Audio command on the far right
of the ribbon.
Here you can insert audio from a file, or you can record your own.
For this first slide, I want to add some intro music that I already have saved to my computer.
So I'm going to choose Audio on my PC... and a dialog box will appear.
PowerPoint is compatible with several different audio formats, including mp3, wav, and more.
All you have to do is select the file you want... then click the Insert button.
You can easily move the audio if you need to… then click the Play button to preview
it.
To jump to a different part of the song, just click anywhere on the timeline.
Next, we're going to take a look at ways to add narration by recording your own audio.
You just need a microphone—one that's either built into your computer, or the kind that
plugs in separately.
Again, go to the Audio command on the Insert tab.
But this time, choose Record Audio from the menu.
And a little dialog box will appear.
When you're ready, click the button with the red dot to start recording, then click this
one to stop.
I'm just going to record a short intro for the slide.
"But I already know how to use the internet!"
Okay, so I've recorded my audio—now we can click the Play button to preview it.
When you're happy with the results, you can give the file a name…
Then click OK… and it'll be added to your slide.
Now that we've added a couple different types of audio, I thought we'd take a look at some
of the options on the Playback tab.
This is where you can change the way your audio works when you play it during your presentation.
You can even do some simple editing.
Say you only want to use part of the clip, for example, not the entire thing.
You can easily create an excerpt using the Trim Audio command.
Just look for the little green and red markers in the dialog box.
You can click and drag these to change the start and end times.
I'm going to leave the beginning the way is, in this example, but end the song after only
a few seconds or so.
When you're done, click OK… and the clip will be trimmed.
You can also set your audio to fade in and fade out if you feel it starts or stops too
abruptly.
Just look to the options in the Editing group.
I like the way this song starts, so I'm not going to add a fade-in.
But I will add a fade-out of... let's say 3 seconds.
(We'll take a look at what this sounds like later.)
If you want to be able to jump to a specific part of the audio during your presentation,
you can add a bookmark.
All you have to do is click the timeline to mark the point you want use.
Next click the Add Bookmark command up here on the ribbon… and a little circle will
appear.
Now you can easily jump to this spot anytime during your presentation.
When we play this in slide show view, we will have to click the audio controls to make the
music play.
I'd rather have it start automatically, though, since it is the intro music.
We can change this using the settings in the Audio Options group.
Just click the drop-down arrow next to Start, then choose Automatically from the menu.
You can also hide the audio icon during your presentation… set the audio to loop until
you stop it manually… and more.
Finally, I think I'd like to make some changes to the appearance of the audio icon.
We can do that by switching over to the Format tab.
These are basically all the same options you get when you insert a picture in PowerPoint.
In fact, you can even change audio icon to a picture of your own, instead of using the
default speaker icon.
To get started, click the Change Picture command.
You can choose an image from any of the usual sources, including files saved to your computer
and a Bing Image Search.
I bet we can find a simple music note somewhere online...
There we go!
This one looks good.
You can even adjust the image using the usual commands.
In this example, I'm going to change the color so it blends in a little better with the slide.
So I think this audio is finished.
Why don't we take a look at the final product in full slide show view?
Now you know how to add and also edit audio in PowerPoint, including music, sounds effects,
and even your own narration.