Add Music to PowerPoint

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If you want to spice up your PowerPoint presentation, a good soundtrack can make it much more compelling. PowerPoint allows you to use any WAV or MP3 file to play in the background, though it requires a little finagling on older versions. If you want to play multiple songs back-to-back, you'll get the best results by combining the songs into a single file first.

Steps

Playing a Single Song

  1. Open the slide you want to start the music on. If you want the music to play from the beginning of the presentation, select the first slide.
    • If you're using Office 2007 or 2003, Add-Music-to-PowerPoint.
    • If you want to play multiple songs throughout a presentation, you could try to line them up by spacing them out between your slides, but you'll likely find it easier and less jarring to create a new file that combines all of the songs into one, back-to-back. Add-Music-to-PowerPoint.
  2. Click the Insert tab. You can insert MP3 and WAV files.
    • If you want to use a song from iTunes, you'll need to convert it to MP3 first by right-clicking on the song in iTunes and selecting "Create MP3 Version". Click here for more details.
    • WAV files can be quite large, and can make the PowerPoint presentation difficult to share. Consider converting the WAV file to MP3. You can do this by importing the WAV into iTunes, or by using a free online converter. Convert-a-WAV-File-to-a-MP3-File.
  3. Click the "Audio" option in the "Media" group. Select "Audio from My PC" from the list of options.
    • Note: The "Online Audio" option no longer works, so if the song you want is online, you'll need to download it to your computer first.[1]
  4. Browse for the music file you want to play. You can select any WAV or MP3 file that's stored on your computer or on any network drives.
  5. Decide if you want the music to start automatically or play when you click. There are two basic options for setting when your music starts. You can either have the song play when you click the button or you can have the song play automatically in the background. There are two presets which allow you to quickly select one of these options:
    • If you want the song to start automatically and play in the background across all of your slides, select the "Play in Background" option in the Playback tab. This will set the song to start automatically, continue playing when slides are changed, loop when finished, and hide the sound button. The song will start playing immediately when that slide is opened.
    • If you prefer to click the button to start the sound instead, select "No Style" from the Playback tab. The song will play when you click the audio button. You can change the look of the button using the Format tab. This will let you design a button or import a picture to use instead.
  6. Make basic edits to the audio file. PowerPoint includes some basic audio editing tools that allow you to change where the song starts playing from, adjust the volume, fade in and out, and more. Select the audio object to open the Playback tab if it isn't already.
    • Add bookmarks to the track. When you hover over the audio object, you'll see a track time slider. Select a spot on the track and click the "Add Bookmark" button to create a clickable bookmark at that point in the track. This will allow you to quickly jump to specific spots.
    • Click the "Trim Audio" button to cut out unnecessary parts of the song. Useful for songs that are too long, or that you only need a piece of. Use the sliders in the Trim Audio window to select the new starting and ending point for the song.
    • Use the Fade Duration options to set the fade in and fade out times. The longer the duration, the more gradual the fade will be.
    • Use the Volume button to adjust the master volume for the song. Make sure to test the song before the presentation and adjust the volume accordingly so that you don't startle the audience.
  7. Share the presentation. PowerPoint 2007 and newer will embed the MP3 file into your presentation file. This will allow you to share the file with others without having to worry about sending the music file along with it. Keep in mind that the size of the presentation will increase based on the size of the MP3 file.
    • If your presentation file is under 20 MB, you can probably attach it to an email to send to others. If it's any larger, you may want to consider using a service like Share-Photos-and-Music-With-Dropbox or Share-a-Google-Drive-File to share it.

Playing Multiple Songs

  1. Understand the process. You can try to space out your music files in your presentation so that the songs flow from one to next, but any changes in your presentation can create jarring transitions or too much silence. If you want a constant background soundtrack for a long presentation, it will be much easier to stitch each audio file into one continuous track and then set it to play from the beginning.
  2. Download and install Audacity. This is a free, open-source audio editor that will allow you to quickly combine your music files. You can download Audacity from sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/.
  3. Open the tracks you want to combine in Audacity. Click the File menu and select "Open...". If your files are all in the same folder, you can hold Ctrl and select each one so that you can open them all at once.
  4. Open the window showing the second track. You will be adding each track to the end of the first song, so open the window showing the second song on your playlist.
  5. Press Ctrl + A to select the entire song.
  6. Press Ctrl + C to copy the selected song.
  7. Open the window containing your first track and put your cursor at the very end of the song.
  8. Press Ctrl + V to paste the copied song to the end of the first song.
  9. Repeat for any additional songs you want to add to your soundtrack.
  10. Cut out extra silence. You can look at the graph to see when the song is playing audio and when there is silence. You may have some extra silence between your added songs that you can remove before adding it to PowerPoint.
    • Click and drag to select the portion of the track that is silent. Make sure you don't delete pauses during a song, as it can make the song sound off. It's also good to leave a second or two of silence in between each song.
    • Click the "Cut" button at the top of the window to delete the selection.
  11. Save the newly combined file. Now that you're finished adding tracks, you'll need to save your new file as an MP3 so that it can be loaded into PowerPoint
    • Click the File menu and select "Export Audio...".
    • Ensure that the "Save as type" field is set to "MP3 Files".
    • Name the file so that you know it is the combined soundtrack and save it in an easy to find location.
    • Click Save and then click OK, unless you want to change any of the MP3 tag information.
    • Wait for the export to complete. It may take a few minutes for Audacity to put together and save your new MP3 file.
  12. Insert the MP3 into PowerPoint. Follow the steps in the Add-Music-to-PowerPoint of this article to insert your combined song file into PowerPoint and have it play automatically in the background.

Using PowerPoint 2007 and 2003

  1. Open the slide you want to start the song on. If you want the song to start when you start your presentation, open the first slide. If you want it to start at a specific point in the presentation, open the slide you want it to start on.
  2. Click the Insert tab, click the "Sounds" button, and then "Sound from File". You'll be able to browse for either WAV or MP3 files.
    • In Office 2003, click the Insert menu, select "Movies and Sounds", and then select "Sound from File".
    • Since PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 cannot embed MP3 files, you'll have the most success if you create a new folder on your computer and put the presentation file along with the audio file in the same spot.
    • You can embed WAV files, but this can create a very large presentation file. It is recommended that you use a linked MP3 file instead.[2]
  3. Decide how you want the sound to start playing. In the "Sound" tab, you can select either "Automatically" or "When Clicked" from the "Play Sound" menu.
    • If you set the song to play automatically, check the "Hide During Show" box to hide the button for the audio file.
  4. Right-click on the new audio object and select "Custom Animation". Normally, the song will stop playing as soon as you move on to the next slide. By creating a custom animation, you can force the music to continue playing longer.[3]
  5. Click the "Multimedia Settings" tab and select the "Continue slide show" option.
  6. Select the "After" option and then set how many slides you want the music to continue playing for. Set this to the number of slides in your presentation to have the music play in the background the entire time. Click "OK" after you're finished.
  7. Package the file. Since the presentation will not have the music file embedded, you will need to "pack" the presentation and the audio together using the "Package for CD". This will allow you to easily share the presentation with others. You won't need to actually burn it to CD.[4]>
    • Click the Office button, select "Publish", then "Package for CD".
    • Enter the name of the folder you want to create in the "Name the CD" box.
    • Click "Options" and ensure that "Include linked files" is checked.
    • Click the "Copy to Folder" button. A new folder will be created with your presentation and the audio file, along with a PowerPoint player so that anyone can view the presentation, even if they don't have Office.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ https://support.office.com/en-za/article/Play-music-for-the-duration-of-your-slide-show-b01ded6a-28c8-473a-971a-6dfa92cc9367?ui=en-US&rs=en-ZA&ad=ZA
  2. ↑ http://b27.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/sta/2010/02/embed_audio_files_in_ms_office_powerpoint_2007.html
  3. ↑ http://www.presentationmagazine.com/how-to-add-music-to-your-powerpoint-presentation-11911.htm
  4. ↑ https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/828504
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