Where to Find Sounds

There are sound collections available all over the Internet, just as there are clip art collections. You can also buy sound collections on CD. If you find yourself putting together a lot of presentations, or searching the Internet for hours to find specific sounds for this or that purpose, then you might find it more cost-effective to simply buy a good collection of sounds.

Here are some Web sites where you can find some sounds:

• A1 Free Sound Effects (http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/noflash.htm): This Web site offers a lot of free sounds for non-commercial use. You can also buy them quite cheaply for commercial use.

• Microsoft (http://www.office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/Sounds.aspx): Microsoft offers a nice collection of free sounds to work with Office versions 2000 and higher. You can also check out http://www.office.microsoft.com.

• Partners in Rhyme (http://www.sound-effect.com): This Web site offers sound and music collections for sale, as well as some free files for download. Their background music clips are cool because they are set up for perfect looping-that is, continuous play without a noticeable break between the end and the beginning.

• Wav Central (http://www.wavcentral.com): This is a big repository of all kinds of free sounds in WAV format. (Beware of possible copyright violations, though; some of the clips here appear to be from movies, TV shows, and so on.)

PowerPoint offers a selection of sounds, and you can find out how to access them within the program later in this chapter.

The Microsoft Clip Organizer can help you find sounds in Microsoft's collection of clips. Although the collection of sounds is not as extensive as what you would find in clip art, you may be able to find something of use.

CROSS-REF 

This chapter does not specifically address the Clip Organizer because it was covered quite thoroughly in Chapter 12.

Now that you know where to find sounds, and how to make intelligent decisions about their use, let's start using them in your presentations.