Sound Across Slides in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows

After inserting an audio file such as a sound track within your PowerPoint presentation, do you want to play this sound track across slides without any interruption when you move from one slide to another? Of course, you must first be sure that the sound track you are using is suitable for this purpose. You can opt for a soothing background music score to play across your presentation slides without distracting your audience. Of course, if a live speaker is spearheading the presentation, then you don't want to add a sound that spans across slides. This will distract the audience, and also the speaker. However, if you are showing a sequence of slides that includes pictures, and no live presenter is required to speak to the audience, then, adding a sound across slides may be a great idea.

Here's how you play sound across slides in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows:

1. Navigate to the slide where you want the sound to begin playing, which is usually the first slide of the presentation. Now, insert the sound clip in this slide. By default, PowerPoint 2013 will embed the sound clip within the presentation. However, you can opt to link rather than embed.
2. Select the audio icon, as shown in Figure 1, below.
3. 
   Figure 1: Audio icon selected
3. You will notice that selecting the audio icon makes the Audio Tools Format and Audio Tools Playback contextual tabs visible on the Ribbon. Click the Audio Tools Playback tab to activate it, as shown in Figure 2.
4. 
   Figure 2: Audio Tools Playback tab of the Ribbon

Contextual Tabs

The Audio Tools Playback tab is a contextual tab. Contextual tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time. They only make an appearance when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using special options.
4. Within the Audio Tools Playback tab, select both the Play Across Slides check-box, highlighted in red within Figure 3, below and Loop until Stopped check-box, highlighted in blue within Figure 3.
5. 
   Figure 3: Play across slides and Loop until Stopped check-boxes selected
5. You might see an audio icon on the slide where you inserted the audio file. This icon may also show when you play the slides in Slide Show view. To counter this issue, you can select the Hide During Show option, highlighted in green within Figure 3, above. Alternatively, just drag this icon to anywhere off the slide, as shown in Figure 4, below. Your sound shall still play fine.
6. 
   Figure 4: Sound icon moved off the slide
6. Play your presentation to ensure that the sound indeed plays across slides.
7. Save your presentation often.