Add Transition Sounds to PowerPoint Slides
Posted on August 4, 2010 at 6:32 am
PowerPoint allows you to add sounds to a presentation by embedding the sound directly into the slide. However, you can also add sounds to a slide that play only when the presentation transitions to the slide. By adding a sound to a slide, you can make your presentation more appealing and also make it more obvious to an audience that the slide has changed.
Why Add a Sound to a Slide Transition?
PowerPoint is the number one electronic slide presentation application in the world. Unfortunately, since everyone uses it, PowerPoint can become quite dull as an audience has to sit through presentation after presentation, each one looking like the last.
Adding animations and other elements to a slide is one way that you can jazz up your presentation. However, for a more conservative approach, you can add a sound to a PowerPoint slide that plays only when the presentation switches to that slide.
This also serves the purpose of alerting your audience that the slide has changed. Since may PowerPoint slides don’t look that much different from each other, you can let your audience members know that the slide has changed by having a sound play each time a slide flips to the next one.
This is especially useful when all eyes are on you and you want to draw your audience’s attention back to the slide PowerPoint presentation.
Add a Transition Sound to a PowerPoint Slide
In a recent article, we discussed tips on using slide animations in PowerPoint. Oddly, Microsoft decided to put the transition sound functions near the slide animations feature on the PowerPoint Ribbon.
To locate transition sounds in PowerPoint, click on the Animations tab on the Ribbon and locate the section of the Ribbon titled Animations. At the right of this section, you will see a drop down menu labeled Transition Sound. By default, the value for each newly created slide is No Sound.
Click on the Transition Sound drop down menu and notice that you have a number of sounds from which to choose. For now, choose the slide to which you want to add a transition sound. Now, click on the Transition Sound drop down menu and choose the Click sound.
You’ll notice that as you hover your mouse over any sound, PowerPoint gives you a preview of how it will sound when applied to a slide. After you choose the Click sound, click on the Slide Show button located at the bottom right of the application and notice that each time you change the presentation to that slide, the Click sound plays.
You are not bound by just the sounds in the Transitions Sounds list. If you go back to the drop down menu, you’ll notice that you have the option to click Other Sound. If you do, PowerPoint will open up the Add Sound window where you can browse to add any sound you want to use during a slide transition.
In addition, you can choose to have the sound loop. Just choose the Loop Until Next Sound option at the bottom of the Transition Sound drop down menu. This feature is particularly useful if you are creating a slide show of images and also use the advance slide feature to make the slides flip automatically after a preset amount of time.
Adding sound to slide transitions in PowerPoint is quite simple. You can even add your own custom sounds to make your presentation stand out. Be careful, though, not to overdo the sound itself or the variety of sounds you choose for the same presentation. Generally, stick to one, unobtrusive sound for slide transitions to keep your presentation professional.
» Filed Under MS Office Tips
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