Adding an
animation to any slide object imparts movement of some sort to that object, and draws the attention
of the audience to that object. Of course, you can tweak the
animation
event, the
speed of the
animation, and also the
delay time
before the animation happens. In this tutorial, we'll explore how you can add sound to an animation
-- the combination of movement and sound makes it compelling for your audience to focus on the object
that is being animated -- but again, this sort of pizzazz only works if you use it sparingly to
highlight the most important part of your presentation. Animation sounds play along with the animation
-- it is important that you use the perfect sound type for any animation -- using clapping or blasting
sounds is very cliché. Now that we have made you aware about the benefits and caveats of using sounds
within animations in PowerPoint, let us go ahead and learn how to do so.
Follow this procedure to add sound to an animation in
PowerPoint 2013:
- Make sure that there is an animated slide object on your slide -- you may want to look at our
Adding an Animation
tutorial if you don't have a slide with an animated object. To begin, we suggest you use a simple shape that has an
Entrance
animation effect applied.
- Select the slide object that is already animated. Then, ensure that the
Animation Pane is visible -- to do that, access the Animations tab
of the Ribbon, and click the
Animation Pane button, as shown in Figure 1. Remember that this is a
toggle button -- so, if your Animation Pane is already visible, then clicking this
button will make the pane disappear.
Figure 1: Animation Pane button within Animations tab
- You should now see the Animation Pane, as shown in Figure 2.
Within this pane, you will see a list of animations applied to all objects on the active slide -- in
Figure 2, you can see that there's just a single animation on the entire slide.
Figure 2: Animation listed within the Animation Pane
- Right-click the animation to which you want to add sound, and from the resultant menu, choose
Effect Options, as shown in Figure 3. Alternatively, you can also
double-click the animation itself within the Animation Pane.
Figure 3: Effect Options selected for the animation
- Either way, this brings up a dialog box with options to edit the animation, as shown in
Figure 4. Within this dialog box, make sure the Effect tab is
selected - within this tab select the Sound option that you can see highlighted in
red within Figure 4.
Figure 4: Sound option within animation dialog box
Note: In Figure 4 above, you can see that the dialog box is named
Random Bars -- the name of this dialog box differs based upon the type of animation
applied -- in this case, we had applied a Random Bars animation, hence the name. If you
had a Wipe animation applied, the dialog box would read Wipe rather
than Random Bars. In any case, the Sound options work the same way for
any animation effect.
- This reveals the Sound drop-down list as shown in Figure 5. Select
any of the pre-built sounds that PowerPoint contains such as: Arrow, Bomb, Breeze, Camera, etc. The
sounds are of a very short duration, typically under 2 or 3 seconds. In Figure 5, below
you can see that the Applause sound has been selected within the Sound
drop-down list.
Figure 5: Applause sound selected to play along with the animation
As soon as you select a sound, the volume button located next to the Sound drop-down
list becomes activated -- click it to bring up a volume slider that lets you increase or reduce the
volume of the animation sound, as shown highlighted in red within
Figure 6, below.
Figure 6: Volume slider within animation dialog box
- If you want to add a sound clip other than the preset sounds, scroll down to the bottom of the
Sound drop-down list where you will find the Other Sound option as
shown in Figure 7. Select this option.
Figure 7: Other Sound option within the Sound drop-down list
This will take you to the Add Audio dialog box as shown in Figure 8.
In this dialog box, navigate to the folder where you have saved the sound you want to play as part of
the animation. Select the required sound file, and click the OK button in this dialog
box (highlighted in red within Figure 8) to add your
sound clip to the animation.
Figure 8: Add Audio dialog box
Tip: You can only use WAV files for Animation sounds – other sound formats such as WMA
and MP3 that PowerPoint accepts cannot be used as animation sounds. However WAV files are typically
larger in size than the same MP3 file. You can actually use an MP3 file with a WAV header and trick
PowerPoint – learn more about creating such files in our
Use CDex to Add WAV Headers to MP3 Files tutorial.
- In addition to the preset sound library in PowerPoint and the Other Sound option,
you will find two more options at the top of the Sound drop-down list -- these are
No Sound and Stop Previous Sound (highlighted in
red within Figure 9).
Figure 9: No Sound and Stop Previous Sound options within Sound drop-down list
Here is an explanation of what these options do:
• No Sound is the default option which is active before you add any sound to your
animation. Choosing this option after you add a sound to your animation provides a quick way to remove
sound from your animation.
• Stop Previous Sound lets you stop the sound playing along with a previous
animation -- sometimes you may add a longer sound clip and you may not want it to play longer -- in that
case, the next animated object with the Stop Previous Sound event selected will stop
that sound from playing further.
- Once you are done selecting the required sound, click the OK button (highlighted in
blue within Figure 9, above). This will play the selected
sound when the object animates.
- Save your presentation often.
See Also:
Animation Sounds in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Animation Sounds in PowerPoint 2010 for Windows
Animation Sounds in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows