97 Add Sound to a Presentation

You can add sound to your presentations to accent an effect or to get your audience's attention during slide transitions. Impress supports the following sound file extensions and formats:

• AU and SND files (SUN/ NeXT )

• WAV (Microsoft Windows)

• VOC (Creative Labs SoundBlaster)

• AIFF (SGI/Apple)

• IFF (Amiga)

Before You Begin

95 Insert Graphics into a Presentation

See Also

99 Add a Slide Transition

98 Impress with Special Effects

NOTE

As with all special effects, don't overdo the use of sound; otherwise , it will distract and not accent your presentation.

Surprisingly, there appears to be no way to provide timed narration throughout an entire presentation, as you might want for an automatic presentation. Nevertheless, Impress does support enough sound techniques to pique your audience's attention.

1. Select an Object to Apply Sound To
   
   Click to select an object on a slide, such as a graphic image or text box. You can attach a sound to this item for a special effect.
   
   
2. Request Interaction
   
   Select Slide Show, Interaction to add a sound to the selected image. The Interaction dialog box appears.
   
   
3. Play the Sound at Image Click
   
   Click to open the Action at mouse click list box and select Play sound . You have just told Impress that you want to play a certain sound when you click the image.
   
   
4. Locate the Sound
   
   Browse your hard disk or network to locate the sound to play. Click OK to attach the sound to the image. When you give your presentation ( assuming it's not an automatic presentation, where you cannot add sound linked to a mouse click because no human presenter will be there to click the mouse), you can click the image to produce the sound through the presentation computer's sound card. You can test the sound effect by clicking it from within the Drawing view without having to run your presentation. (To add sound during an automatic presentation, you can select an action such as Action when slide appears .)
   
   

   NOTE

   

   Obviously, you'll need sound amplification equipment so your entire audience can hear the sound when you trigger it with the mouse click.

5. Determine the Sound at Fade
   
   Instead of adding the sound when you click an element, you can request that the element fade out and specify that a sound play during the fading process. When you change from that slide to the next one during your presentation, the image or text box will fade away and play the sound while doing so.
   
   
6. Add the Sound to a Slide Transition
   
   When you transition from one slide to the next, you can specify a sound that will play during the transition. See 99 Add a Slide Transition for more information on setting up slide transitions.