If used sparingly, a slideshow with music or audio can help keep your audience’s attention without sounding too professional. Audio can also be an important talking point – for example, if you’re featuring a song, jingle or soundtrack. In this guide, we’ll show you how to add audio to PowerPoint so you can meet those needs.
PowerPoint makes it very easy to insert audio from your local PC and adjust it or even record a voiceover directly within the application. Although strange in a conference setting, a pre-recorded voiceover makes sense when there is no live audience.
Advertisement
How to Make a Slideshow with Music/Audio – What You Need
Before starting with this tutorial, you of course need a handy audio clip or a microphone with which you can record audio. We’ll be adding music to the PowerPoint desktop, but you can use the web version if you want. Just keep in mind that the interface might be a bit different, and PowerPoint Online currently doesn’t have a voice recording option.
That said, here’s how to create a slideshow with audio or music using PowerPoint:
How to Add Audio to PowerPoint
Adding audio to PowerPoint is a simple affair. If you don’t have your audio yet but just want to follow along, you can download this example file. Otherwise, feel free to continue below:
- Open your video’s “Insert” tab and tap “Media > Audio on my PC…” on the left side
- Navigate to your audio file, click on it and press “Insert”
- OR: Add a voiceover to PowerPoint
If you’re wondering how to add a voiceover to PowerPoint instead of a pre-recorded audio clip, the answer is in the same menu.
After pressing the “Audio” button in the “Insert” panel, just click “Audio recording…” Instead.
- Name your PowerPoint voiceover and tap the record icon to create your snippet
- Replay your recording to check its quality and press “OK” when you are satisfied
It will probably take a few takes to be correct.
- Your PowerPoint audio or voiceover will appear as a media bar on your slide
- Click on the media player and open the playback tab to adjust your audio options
Important options to consider are:
– Start: choose to play it in a sequence of clicks, automatically or when clicked.
– Play on all slides: By checking this option, the music or audio will play on every slide in your presentation.
– Loop Until Stopped: This will allow your music or audio to continue indefinitely.
– In newer versions of PowerPoint, the “Play in the background” option automatically starts the audio when you reach the slide in your presentation and continues it on your other slides.
- Adjust your fade settings
If you have audio on multiple slides, it will sound weird if the track suddenly stops. This is especially true if you’re doing a PowerPoint voiceover. To remedy this, play with the “Fade Duration” settings. This will slowly decrease or increase the audio level for a smoother transition.
You can also use the buttons to its left to trim your audio clip, bookmark it, or just play it.
If you prefer Google’s suite to Microsoft’s, don’t worry – we also have a guide on how to add music or videos to Google Slides. It’s a bit more tedious, but still quite simple.
If you prefer to stick with Office 365, however, we have another tutorial you might be interested in. Read it to know how to embed a YouTube video in PowerPoint.
Advertisement