Insert video|Play audio across multiple slide|Trim Audio on PowerPoint

Insert video in PowerPoint

How do you put video files into PowerPoint? Can you show video in a PowerPoint presentation? The answer is yes! In fact, it’s very easy.

Video files come in several formats. The formats that work well in PowerPoint are:

• AVI
• WMV
• MPG (or MPEG)

Before you start, you must put the video file in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentation. The reason for this is that if you ever move your presentation to another computer, you video probably won’t play. Not following this advice is probably the #1 reason videos don’t play in PowerPoint.

Then, choose Insert> Movies and Sounds> Movie from File. (In PowerPoint 2007, go to Insert tab> Media Clips Group> Movie.) From the dialog box, find and double-click the video file. (Note that “video” and “movie” mean the same thing.)

You see a message asking you if you want the video to play automatically or when clicked. Choose whichever you want. You can change the option later. The first frame of the video appears on your slide.

Change how the video plays in PowerPoint

You have some control over how the video plays in PowerPoint. Right-click the video on the slide, and choose Edit Movie Object to open the Movie Options dialog box. (In PowerPoint 2007, select the video, and click the Movie Tools Options tab. Most of the options are on the tab, but not all. For more options, click the dialog box launcher arrow at the right side of the group’s title bar to open the Movie Options dialog box.)

Here’s what you can do:

• Loop the video: Check the Loop Until Stopped check box.
• Rewind the video: Check the Rewind Movie When Done (After) Playing checkbox. You would do this if you might need to play it more than once during a presentation
• Hide the video when it isn’t playing: Check the Hide While Not Playing check box.
• Zoom the video to full screen: Check the Zoom to Full Screen/Play Full Screen check box. (This was a new feature in PowerPoint 2003.) This will probably result in low resolution.

If you want to change whether the video plays automatically or only when clicked, choose Slide Show> Custom Animation (in PowerPoint 2007, Animations tab> Custom Animation) to open the Custom Animation task pane:

• If you chose to play the video automatically, you’ll see two items; the first has a Start setting of After Previous and the second has a trigger (the video itself) and a Start setting of On Click. To change to playing when clicked, delete the item that has a Start setting of After previous.
• If you chose to play the video when clicked, you’ll just see the trigger and the On Click setting in the Start box. To change to playing automatically, click the item’s down arrow in the Custom Animations task pane, and choose Timing. Under the Triggers button, click the Animate as Part of Click Sequence option. In the same dialog box, set the Start to With Previous. Click OK. (Note that there still may be a slight delay after you display the slide before the video starts to play.)

You can size the video so that it’s appropriate for the resolution of your screen or projector. This is useful if you switch to a computer or projector with a different resolution than the original computer where you created the presentation. Follow these steps:

1. Select the video.
2. Right-click the video and choose Format Picture to open the Format Picture dialog box. (In PowerPoint 2007, right-click and choose Size and Position to open the Size and Position dialog box.)
3. Click the Size tab.
4. Check the Best Scale for Slide Show check box.

Troubleshooting video in PowerPoint

Sometimes, videos in PowerPoint don’t play. There can be a number of reasons for this:

• Videos are linked, not embedded. If you move your presentation, or send it to someone, you must include the video file. The Package for CD feature can do this for you. Choose File> Package for CD and use the Copy to Folder button. (In PowerPoint 2007, choose Office button> Publish> Package for CD.)
• When created, videos are compressed using compression/decompression algorithms. These are called codecs for short. If your computer doesn’t have the codec that was used when the video was created, PowerPoint won’t play the video.
• PowerPoint for the Mac plays MOV (Quicktime) files; but PowerPoint for the PC doesn’t. So, if the presentation was created on the Mac, your video might not play because it’s a MOV file.

How to Play a Sound across Multiple Slides in Microsoft PowerPoint 

Adding music to a PowerPoint presentation will not only give your presentation more appeal but grab the attention of the audience as well.
If you are using Microsoft PowerPoint 2007/2003, please click here to learn the corresponding tutorial.
For this tutorial, we will be using state-of-art Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, Windows Edition. If you do not have PowerPoint 2010, you can download the free 30-day trial here.
After you are all ready to go with PowerPoint, go ahead and launch it from the start menu or by double-clicking the PowerPoint icon on your desktop. If you are starting a new project, type a title in for your presentation. If you want to add music to an existing presentation, open it by clicking the File button then Open at the top left corner.
Next, you will need to make sure that you have an audio file ready to sync with your presentation.

Click the Insert tab located along the top PowerPoint toolbar. Then, locate the Audio icon, located on the far right of the lower toolbar, and click the arrow below it to bring down the sub menu.
From here, you will notice the options: Audio from File, Clip Art Audio, and Record Audio. You can choose whichever option you prefer. For this presentation, we will be using the Audio from File option. Therefore, we will need to navigate to our audio file and click the OK button.
Click the small speaker representing the audio file you have inserted, and the Audio Tools interface displays. Click thePlayback icon.

Select the Play across slides option from the submenu of Start on the right side of Volume.

Select the Animation Pane option under the Animations tab. Right-click the audio file in the emerging Animation Panewindow on the left, and select Effect Options from the drop-down list.
Then the Play Audio interface appears. In the Effect tab, make your choice at Stop Playing-After XXX slides.
After you have done testing your music, you can hit the esc key to exit the slide show.
That’s all there is to it. You should have now easily added sound to your PowerPoint presentation.

Trim Audio on PowerPoint 

Once you insert an audio into your presentation, you may find that it is too long, or there may be parts in the clip that you don't want the audiences to hear. Or maybe you just need a small bit to play -- like the sound of that trumpet blowing! Although you can scrub the clip using the Player Controls bar (highlighted in red within Figure 1, below) to ascertain where you want the clip to begin and end, that option may become monotonous and inaccurate -- and it also looks very unprofessional if you try scrubbing an audio clip right in front of your audience. Fortunately, PowerPoint's trim audio options can make this easy for you -- follow these steps to explore how you can trim an audio clip right inside PowerPoint 2010:

1. Open your presentation, and navigate to the required slide where you have already inserted an audio Just select or double-click the audio clip to bring up the two contextual Audio Tools tabs in the Ribbon. These two tabs are Format and Playback -- click the Playback tab to activate it, as shown inFigure 1 (highlighted in blue).
   
   
   Figure 1: Audio Tools Playback tab of the Ribbon
   
2. Now, within the Audio Tools Playback tab, click the Trim Audio button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
   
   
   Figure 2: Trim Audio button
   
3. This opens the Trim Audio dialog box, as shown in Figure 3. Notice that any bookmarks you may have added to your audio clip also show up within the dialog box (as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3, below). Additionally, you see a sound wave representing your audio track.
   
   
   Figure 3: Trim Audio dialog box
   
   Also, notice green and red markers representing the Start and End positions, highlighted in blue within Figure 3, above. In addition, the positions of these markers at any given time are shown in the Start Time and End Time boxes (highlighted in green within Figure 3, above).
   
4. If you have added bookmarks to set your Start and End times, follow further – if not, skip to Step 5.
   
   Now drag the green and red markers to overlap the bookmarks, as shown inFigure 4, below. Notice that the markers will not snap to your Bookmarks, so try to be as precise as you can.
   
   
   Figure 4: Green and red markers dragged over bookmarks
   
5. If you have no bookmarks added, you will have to first play the audio to ascertain where you want to start and end the audio clip. Play the audio by clicking the large Play button, highlighted in red within Figure 5. When you reach the position where you want to start playing the trimmed audio clip, click the Pause button. Now, go ahead and set this paused position as the Startposition using any of these approaches:
   
   
   1. Place your cursor over the green marker to see the two-headed arrow (highlighted in blue within Figure 5). Then click and drag the green marker to the same position where you paused.
      
   2. Make a note of the time position, and manually enter the time value within the Start Time box (highlighted in green within Figure 5).
      
      
      Figure 5: Adjust markers when there is no Bookmark added
6. After setting the Start position, play the audio again. When the position where you want to end playing the audio clip is reached, pause the audio. Now, set your End position as well by either dragging the red marker to the paused position, or by manually entering the time value within the End Time box.
   
7. Before you trim the clip, preview which parts are included by clicking the Playbutton again (highlighted in red within Figure 5, above) -- make changes if you are not satisfied.
   
8. Once you are happy with the part included in the trimmed audio clip, go ahead and trim by clicking the OK button, highlighted in red within Figure 6, below.
   
   
   Figure 6: Press the OK button to trim
   
9. This will take you back to the slide with the trimmed audio clip, note that although the audio is trimmed, you have not lost the parts that were trimmed off -- to get them back, or to change the Start and End points again, just select the audio clip and click the Trim Audio button again. This will get you to the same Trim Audio dialog that you saw last in Figure 6, above -- you can actually drag the green and red markers again to their original positions, and all the trimming will be undone!
   
   
   Note: You can only edit the start and end points of audio as long as you do not use any of the Compress Media options -- once you compress the audio clips, the trimming will be final, and not editable henceforth.



10. Make sure you save your presentation.

Note: If you use both the Trim Audio and the Play Audio Across Slidesoptions, you will not achieve results that will work on older versions of PowerPoint. However, it will work in older versions if you compress the media files by choosing the File | Info | Compress menu option. Explore our Video Compression Options tutorial to learn more. Although the link provided is for video, you can follow the same steps to compress audio clip.