Chapter 16: Adding Sound Effects, Music, and Soundtracks

Whether it's a simple sound effect or a complete musical sound-track, sounds in a PowerPoint presentation can make a big difference in the audience's perception of your message. In this chapter, you will learn when and how to use sounds, how to place them in the presentation, and how to manage their playback.

When Are Sounds Appropriate?

Sounds should serve the purpose of the presentation; you should never use them simply because you can. If you add a lot of sounds purely for the fun of it, then your audience may lose respect for the seriousness of your message. That being said, there are many legitimate reasons to use sounds in a presentation. Just make sure that you are clear on what your reasons are before you start working with them. Here are some ideas:

• You can assign a recognizable sound, such as a beep or a bell, to each slide, so that when your audience hears the sound, they know to look up and read the new slide.

• You can record a short voice-over message from a CEO or some other important person who could not be there in person.

• You can punctuate important points with sounds, or use sounds to add occasional humorous touches.

However, if you are trying to pack a lot of information into a short presentation, you should avoid sounds because they take up time when you play them. You should also avoid sounds and other whimsical touches if you are delivering very serious news. You may also want to avoid sounds if you intend to present on a very old and slow computer because any kind of media clip-whether sound or video-will slow the system down even more, both when you load the presentation and when you present it.

There are several ways that you can include a sound in a presentation:

• Insert a sound file. The sound plays during the presentation whenever anyone points to or clicks the sound icon, depending on the settings that you specify. This is useful in an interactive presentation because it gives the audience a choice of whether to play the sound.

• Associate a sound with an object (such as a graphic), so that the sound plays when anyone points to or clicks that object. This is another good technique for interactive presentations.

• Associate a sound with an animation effect (such as a series appearing in a graph), so that the sound plays when the animation effect occurs. For example, you might have some text "drive in" onto a slide and associate the sound of an engine revving with that action.

• Associate a sound with a slide transition (a move from one slide to the next), so that the sound plays when the next slide appears. For example, you may assign a shutter-click sound, such as the sound that a slide projector makes when it changes slides, to the transitions between slides.

• Insert a sound that plays automatically in the background. This is useful for unattended (kiosk-style) presentations.

CROSS-REF 

In this chapter, you learn about the first two of these techniques: inserting files as icons and associating them with objects. Chapter 18 covers transition and animation sounds.