How to Play Audio in PowerPoint – Tutorial

If you have used PowerPoint before, you probably already know that you can insert songs, sound effects, and other audio files in your presentations. But did you know that you can program that audio to play automatically instead of having to start it manually? In this article, we are going to talk about How to Play Audio in PowerPoint – Tutorial. Let’s begin!

Depending on your preference, you can choose to start the audio immediately with the first slide or have it delayed until a specific slide appears. Yes, there are a lot more options to playback audio in PowerPoint than many presenters know. Let us start by going to the Playback tab in the PowerPoint ribbon. To get the tab you need to click on the audio icon on the slide.

How Do I Get Audio to Play Automatically in PowerPoint? | Play Audio in PowerPoint

Playing audio automatically in PowerPoint is fairly easy to set up, and depending on your needs, you can customize it to better suit your presentation.

Below, we will take a look at how to set it up to play audio from the beginning, only for specific slides, and across multiple slides.

Playing Audio from the Beginning | Play Audio in PowerPoint

If you want to play an audio file from the very beginning of your presentation, the process is very simple.

Here is what you need to do:

• Go to the first slide of your presentation and click on the Sound icon in the Normal view.
• Click on the Playback tab in the Audio Tools section.
• Under Audio Options, open the dropdown menu next to Start and select Automatically. If you are using a more recent version of PowerPoint (2016 and newer), you can also choose the option labeled In Click Sequence from the dropdown menu to achieve the same effect.

Once you have set this up, make sure to double-check that everything is as it should be. To preview your presentation (and test your audio). Click on the Slide Show tab, and then choose “From Beginning”.

Playing Audio from a Specific Slide | Play Audio in PowerPoint

If you want to have your audio play from a specific slide and/or with a predefined time delay, the process is a bit more complicated. Here is how to do it:

• As in the previous section, go to the slide during which you want the audio to start playing and click on the Sound icon in the Normal view.
• Click on the Animation tab and then on Add Animation.
• From the media section, choose Play, the first option to the left.
• Click on the Animation Pane next to the Add Animation button.
• In the Animation Pane, reorganize the items so that the audio file is first on the list.
• Click on the down arrow next to the audio file and select Effect Options… from the dropdown menu.
• In the Effect tab, select From Beginning under the Start Playing option. While in that same tab, under the Stop Playing option, choose After Current Slide.
• Now click on the Timing tab. Next to the word Start, you’ll see a dropdown menu. Click on it and select the option labeled With Previous.
• If you do not want the audio to start as soon as the slide loads, you can set a custom delay in the designated field. Simply add the number of seconds that you want to pass before the audio starts. If you do not want to delay the audio, leave the box empty and move on to the next step.
• Finally, click OK to confirm your changes.

Playing Audio Across Multiple Slides | Play Audio in PowerPoint

If you are giving a long lecture and just want random, non-distracting music to play in the background, you can also make it part of your presentation and set it to play across multiple slides.

To do this, follow the next steps:

• Go to the Insert tab, click on Audio, and then choose Audio on My PC. If you are using Office 2010 or an older version, the option will be labeled Audio from File.
• Browse your computer for the file you want to play. Once you have found it, either double-click on it or select it and then click on Insert.
• Under Audio Tools, click on the Playback tab and select the option Play in Background. In older versions of PowerPoint, you should click on the dropdown box next to the Start option and select Play across slides from the list. In both versions, the file will start playing automatically as soon as you start the slide show.

If the audio you chose is too short to cover the duration of your whole presentation. You can do a test run of the presentation, the time it, and insert more audio files on other slides so that there are no silent intervals.

You can also use free audio-editing tools like Audacity or Free Audio Editor to combine two or more audio files into one, thus ensuring that the audio keeps playing for as long as necessary.

Saving Audio Files | Play Audio in PowerPoint

If you are saving your presentation to a flash drive, make sure to keep the audio files and the presentation in the same folder. Otherwise, PowerPoint won’t be able to locate the files you inserted and your presentation will be silent as a result.

The only thing to do in such situations would be to edit the path of each audio file in your presentation, which is very time-consuming and therefore best avoided.

Conclusion

Alright, That was all Folks! I hope you like this Play Audio in PowerPoint article and find it helpful to you. Also if you guys have further queries related to this article. Then let us know in the comments section below. We will get back to you shortly.

Have a Great Day!

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