Insert Audio (Sound) in PowerPoint 2016 for Windows

Sounds come in so many file types: MP3, WMA, or WAV files are just the common types that you can insert in PowerPoint slides. These sound files automatically embed into your presentation; this means that you no longer have to worry about linked files getting misplaced or lost like you had to in previous versions of PowerPoint. Even then, it is a good practice to keep your sound files in the same folder in which you save your PowerPoint 2016 presentation even before you insert them, as we show you in the following steps:

Remember: As far as possible, work with a presentation that’s saved at least once. Also, do explore our PowerPoint Friendly Audio Formats page to understand which common and exotic audio file types you can insert in PowerPoint.

Navigate to the slide where you want to add a sound. From the Insert tab of Ribbon, click the down-arrow below the Audio button to bring up the drop-down menu shown in Figure 1. Within this menu, choose the Audio on My PC option (highlighted in red within Figure 1).

Figure 1: Audio on My PC option
This brings up the Insert Audio dialog box, as shown in Figure 2. Navigate to the folder where your audio clips are saved, and click upon any audio file to select.

Figure 2: Insert Audio dialog box
Now, click the Insert button (highlighted in red within Figure 2 above) to add the audio to the active slide and embed it as part of your presentation. This of course can balloon the file size, and you can still link the audio file rather than embedding it by following the alternative options explained next.

To link rather than embed, click on the down-arrow next to the Insert button. This brings up a menu with two options as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Choose if you want to link or embed

Insert is the default option that embeds the sound within the presentation. This is the same as discussed in step 3 above.

Link to File does not store the audio clip as part of your presentation but links it. This is the same as the default behavior in older versions of PowerPoint (PowerPoint 2007 and earlier). If you do choose the Link to File option, always copy your audio clip to the same folder as your presentation before you insert it within your slide.
Whichever option you choose (as explained above), PowerPoint will place a sound icon on the center of the slide, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Audio icon placed on slide
You can use the Play button on the Player Controls (below the audio icon, as shown in Figure 4 above). You can also set the audio to play automatically. To do so, select the audio clip icon so that the two contextual Audio Tool tabs of the Ribbon are visible. Click the Audio Tools Playback tab of the Ribbon to activate it as shown in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5: Audio Tools Playback tab of the Ribbon

Note: 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.
This tab offers you different options to control the playback of the audio you have selected. Within the Audio Options group, click within the box next to the Start option to open a drop-down list (highlighted in red within Figure 6), and select the Automatically option. This will make the selected audio play automatically when the slide containing it comes up in Slide Show mode.

Figure 6: Automatically option selected within Start drop-down list
Save your presentation.