Adding Music to PowerPoint

Inserting Background Music Into Your PowerPoint Presentations

OTS PUBLICATION :

PPA2 REVISED 10-18-2006 TRAINING @ TOWSON . EDU OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY SERVICES =Shortcut =Advice =Caution

Welcome!
Have you ever wanted to add background music to a PowerPoint presentation to energize, relax or otherwise sway the mood of your audience? If so, this guide if for you. Below, we describe how to insert music (or any suitable background audio) from both audio CDs and digital music files (e.g., mp3 files). We also discuss how to control the duration of playback and insure that the audio content becomes part of your presentation file.

The Copyright Conundrum

This document describes the integration of recorded music into personal files. Within limits, this is allowable in an educational context. Be sure to read Page 4 to learn more.

In this document, we assume that the you, the reader, have achieved proficiency with PowerPoint basics. Should you wish to review the basics, please consult the PowerPoint self-help resources available at http://wwwnew.towson.edu/adminfinance/OTS/training.

Inserting Music from an Audio CD

This option represents the simplest way to add background music because it requires nothing more than an ordinary audio CD and does not involve acquiring or inserting digital audio files. For the sake of context, lets say you want to play tracks 2 through 5 of your favorite Molar Bears CD while projecting a title slide prior to your presentation on dental hygiene. Granted, thats a lot to say, but context is a good cause. 1. 2. Examine your audio CD and note the numbers of the tracks you wish to use.0 Insert the audio CD into your computers CD drive. Your computer may ask you what you want it to do with the CD or it may start playing it automatically in the default media player. In the former case, click the Cancel button to do nothing; in the latter, stop the playback and close the media player. Open your presentation (PPT) file in Normal view and select the title slide (or another slide on which the music should begin). On the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds; then, on the related submenu, click Play CD Audio Track [Fig 1] to open the Insert CD Audio dialog [Fig 2]. Set your desired start and end tracks. PowerPoint will automatically display the corresponding time values. In Figure 2, the time value 00:00 indicates that playback will start at the very beginning of track 2. The time value 01:59.14 indicates that playback will stop 1 minute, 59.14 seconds into track 5; in other words, PowerPoint will play all of track 5 which is 1:59.14 long. Feel free to adjust these time values if you wish to start later or end earlier within a particular track. Figure 1

1 2 3

3. 4.

5.

Figure 2

The time within the start track at which playback will begin. The time within the end track at which playback will stop. Make the CD icon invisible to your audience.

2005 Towson University -This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. Details available at http://www.towson.edu/OTStraining. 410-704-4070.

6.

Set additional options as desired: Loop until stopped will cause the specified tracks to play continuously until you advance to the next slide. Sound volume allows you to increase or decrease the audio CD volume independent of the volume of other audio content, such as narration. Hide sound icon during slide show will make the CD icon (shown here) invisible to your audience.

Figure 3

7.

Click OK to complete the insertion. PowerPoint will ask whether the sound should start automatically or manually [Fig 3]. Click Automatically to begin playback as soon as the slide opens in Slide Show view. Click When Clicked to hold playback until the user double-clicks the CD icon in the center of the slide. If you plan to trigger playback manually, be sure not to hide the CD icon as described above in Step 6. But while the icon is required for manual playback, it does not have to occupy such prominent position as dead center; you may drag and drop the icon to any Figure 4 location on your slide.

8.

To confirm the insertion, make sure your speakers are turned-on and click the miniscule Slide Show icon [Fig 4] above the Draw button in the lower left corner of the desktop. This will open the selected slide in Slide Show view. Depending on your decision in Step 7 above, you should either hear the audio immediately or after clicking the CD icon.

This procedure does not add the music to your PowerPoint file, but rather inserts instructions for playing whatever CD is loaded in the computers CD drive. In the preceding example, were I to insert my Bicuspid Boys CD instead of my Molar Bears CD, PowerPoint wouldnt know the difference. It would start at the beginning of track 2 and stop 2 minutes into track 5. If you use this technique, dont forget to take your CD with you and to insert it into the computers CD drive before the presentation.

Inserting Music from a Digital Music File

If the background audio you wish to use already exists in the form of a digital music file (e.g., mp3, midi, wav, wma), you can leave the CD behind and integrate your audio into the PowerPoint file itself using the Insert Sound From File feature. Start by acquiring the music file (or files) you wish to use and placing them in a folder that you will be able to locate later. File size does matter; a 5-minute song in an uncompressed format such as WAV may be 40-50MB in size. A file that large could very well lead to sluggishness and other performance issues. Using compressed files such as MP3s is advisable. Such files may be downloaded from the web and/or imported from audio CDs using media applications such as iTunes, RealPlayer, Musicmatch Jukebox, and others. 1. 2. Open your presentation (PPT) file in Normal view and select the title slide (or another slide on which you want the music to begin). On the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds; then, on the related submenu, click Sound from file [visible in Fig 1] to open the Insert Sound dialog. As in Step 7 of the previous section, PowerPoint will ask whether the sound should start automatically or manually [Fig 3]. For background music, we recommend Automatic playback. To confirm insertion, see Step 8 of the previous section, noting that in this case the audio content is represented by a yellow speaker icon rather than a CD icon. 2

3. Locate and click on the desired sound file; then, click the OK button to insert the file. 4. 5.

Setting Music to Span Two or More Slides

By default, PowerPoint will stop playing an inserted sound when the presentation advances to the next slide (i.e., the slide after the slide on which the sound is inserted). To have PowerPoint continue payback over two or more slides, you will have to modify the objects custom animation properties. Figure 5 1. In Normal view, select the slide bearing the sound object (speaker or CD icon) you wish to modify. The speaker icon is shown circled in Figure 5.

1 2

2. Right-click the icon to open its associated pop-up menu and click Custom Animation [Fig 5] to reveal the Custom Animation Task panel on the right side of the PowerPoint desktop [Fig 6]. The mid-section of the panel lists the objects that are currently animated. Your inserted sound will be among themit may be the only object listedand highlighted by a gray border [Fig 7].

Figure 6

Custom Animation Task Panel

Figure 8

1 2 3

3.

Click the menu button [Fig 7, Item 2] adjacent to the sound object in the Custom Animation Task Panel [Fig 7] to open the pop-up menu. Click on Effect Options to open the Play Sound dialog [Fig 8]. The Effect tab of the Play Sound dialog includes controls for setting the start and end properties of the sound object.

Figure 7

1 2

4.

In the Stop playing area of the dialog, click the radio button labeled After: and then enter the number of slides over which you want the sound to play. Then, click the OK button to complete the change.

5.

Open the slide on which the sound object is inserted in Slide Show view to confirm that the playback spans the desired number of slides. Should you need to make adjustments, repeat the above procedure from Step 3.

Embedding Sound Files in PowerPoint Presentations

By default, when you insert a sound object with a corresponding file size greater than 100KB, PowerPoint establishes a link to the file and does not physically embed it into the presentation file. In other words, the sound file does not become part of the PowerPoint file. To insure that PowerPoint embeds your sound fileso that all presentation content is contained in a single file: 1. Select Options from the PowerPoint Tools menu. 2. In the Options dialog, click the tab labeled General. Then, change the value in the box labeled Link sounds with file size greater than from 100 to 50000 (the greatest value allowed), and click the OK button.

Embedding Copyright Protected Music

Now that you are empowered to incorporate a few favorite MP3 files into your latest PowerPoint presentation, we are compelled to remind you that with great power comes great responsibility. Ironically, we stole that line from Spider Man; but it fits here as well. Take a few minutes to read-up on academic fair use guidelines at www.utsystem.edu/ ogc/intellectualproperty/ccmcguid.htm; the section titled Limitations contains advice particularly pertinent to the procedures described in this document. Also, consider using public domain music or music which is pre-approved for noncommercial use; consult the Creative Commons web site (www.creativecommons.org) for more information on the latter. Incorporate the work of others in a responsible and respectful way and you can screen your presentation with pride rather than guilt.