Computer Applications I :: Lessons :: PowerPoint Music
Adding Music
To insert a song, or any sound effect make sure you are on the slide where the song will begin and go to Insert>Media Clips>Sound. Select Sound From File and choose the song you want to insert. Once you select the song a box will pop up. Choose "Automatically" if you want the sound to play without a mouse click. For a song we will be changing this in a moment so it doesn't matter what you click here.
A sound icon will appear on your slide after you inserted the song, and an Options Tab will appear when that icon is selected. To hide the icon while your presentation is playing go to Options>Sound Options>Hide During Show and check the box. The icon will still be visible while editing the slide show.
When playing a song you generally want it to play through the entire presentation. To do this go to Options>Sound Options>Play Sound and choose Play Across Slides to make the song continue to play until its completion.
Rehearse Timings
Although you can use timings for any slideshow they are most useful for synching a slideshow to music as you will do in the Musical PowerPoint project. To set the timings for your presentation go to Slide Show>Rehearse Timings. This button will start your slideshow. Pressing "Enter" or clicking the mouse will advance the slides or animations. Pressing "Esc" while you are rehearsing the timings will allow you to cancel them.
When the presentation is over PowerPoint will ask you if you want to save the timings. Once the timings are saved your PowerPoint presentation will play automatically. To change timings individually go to Animations>Transition To This Slide>Advance Slide and change the time that appears after Automatically After.
To save your presentation in a way that is easily playable on another computer go to the Office Button in the upper-left and go to Publish>Package for CD. In the window that appears you can hit the Copy to Folder button to save a folder that will contain all the files necessary to play your presentation on any Windows computer even if it does not have PowerPoint installed.
