Sound Across Slides
Author: Geetesh Bajaj
See Also: Sound Across Slides in all PowerPoint versions
Product/Version: PowerPoint 97 and 2000
Date Created: June 26th 2008
Last Updated: February 26th 2009
Excerpt/Capsule:
Remember: As far as possible, work with a presentation that has been saved at least once; then copy any sound/music file you want to loop to the same folder as the presentation as shown in Figure 1 -- and then follow these steps.
Figure 1: PowerPoint presentation and
sound file
Follow these steps to loop a music (or any sound) file across slides in PowerPoint 97 and 2000:
- Navigate the first slide of the presentation and
choose Insert | Movies And Sounds | Sound From File… as shown
in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Sound from file
- This opens Insert Sound dialog box as shown in Figure
3. Navigate to the sound track you want to insert
and click OK.
Note: PowerPoint allows you to insert several types of sounds in various formats -- but WAV, WMA, and MP3 work best.
Figure 3: Insert Sound
- This will insert the sound in the slide -- Figure 4 shows
the inserted sound icon that you'll probably find right in the
center of the slide and at the same time PowerPoint brings up
a message window, asking
do you want the sound to play automatically in the slideshow.
Choose Yes.
Figure 4: Play automatically
- Right click the sound icon and choose Custom Animation (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: Right-click menu
- This will open the Custom Animation dialog box as shown in Figure 6, in the Multimedia Settings, Check
the "Play using animation order" option
and under While playing choose
the Continue slide show radio
button. For the Stop playing option, choose
After and type 999 (refer to figure 6).
Figure 6: Multimedia Settings
Note: You type 999 here since that's the largest number that PowerPoint will allow you to add here.
When done, click OK to get back to your slide.
- Right click the sound icon again and choose the Edit
Sound Object as shown in Figure
7.
Figure 7: Edit Sound Object
- This brings up the Sound Options dialog box (see Figure
8).
Figure 8: Sound Options
Under Play options check the Loop until stopped box (highlighted in red) and click OK.
- In all versions of PowerPoint, you might see a sound
icon on the slide where you inserted the sound - if you
don't like the icon on the slide, just drag it to anywhere
off the slide - your sound shall still play fine.
Tip: Save your presentation often!
Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for the world’s most admired brands. His client list includes Intel, Chase, Barclays, IBM, Nokia, and many others. 
