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If used sparingly, a slideshow with music or audio can help to keep your audience's attention without seeming too unprofessional. Audio can also be an important discussion point – for example, if you are presenting a song, jingle, or soundtrack. In this guide, we're going to show you how to add audio to PowerPoint so you can meet these needs.
PowerPoint makes it very easy to insert audio from your local PC and adjust it or even record a voiceover directly in the app. While strange in a conference setting, a pre-recorded voice-over makes sense when there is no live audience.
How to make a slideshow with music / audio – What you need
Before we start with this tutorial you of course need an audio clip to hand or a microphone with which you can record audio. We'll be adding music to PowerPoint desktop, but you can the web version if you wish. Just bear in mind that the interface may be a little different and that PowerPoint Online does not currently have a voice recording option.
With that said, here's how to make a slideshow with audio or music using PowerPoint:
How to Add Audio to PowerPoint
Adding audio to PowerPoint is a simple affair. If you don't have your audio yet but just want to follow along, you can download this sample file. Otherwise, feel free to just continue below:
- Open the “Insert” tab of your video and press “Media > Audio on my PC…” on the left side
- Browse to your audio file, click it, and press “Insert”
- OR: Add a voiceover to PowerPoint
If you're wondering how to add a voiceover to PowerPoint instead of a pre-recorded audio clip, the answer is in the very same menu.
After pressing the “Audio” button in the “Insert” panel, just click “Record Audio…” instead.
- Name your PowerPoint voiceover and press the record icon to create your snippet
- Replay your recording to check its quality and press “OK” when you're satisfied
It will likely require a few takes to get correct.
- Your PowerPoint audio or voiceover will appear as a media bar on your slide
- Click on the media player and open the playback tab to adjust your audio options
Important options to consider are:
– Start: Choose whether to play it in a click sequence, automatically or when clicked on.
– Play across slides: Ticking this option will make the music or audio play on every slide of your presentation.
– Loop until stopped: This will allow your music or audio to continue indefinitely.
– In newer versions of PowerPoint, the “Play in Background” option makes audio start automatically when you reach the slide on your presentation and continues it across your other slides.
- Adjust your fade settings
If you have audio on multiple slides, it's going to sound odd if the track suddenly stops. This is especially true if you're doing a PowerPoint voiceover. To remedy this, play with the “Fade Duration” settings. This will slowly lower or raise the audio level for a more seamless transition.
You can also make use of the buttons to the left of it to trim your audio clip, add a bookmark to it, or just play it back.
Extra: How to Add Music to Google Slides
If you prefer Google's suite over Microsoft's don't worry – we also have a guide on how to add music or video to Google Slides. It's a bit more tedious, but still quite simple.
Extra: How to Add Video to PowerPoint
If you'd rather stick to Office 365, however, we have another tutorial that might be of interest. Read it to learn how to embed a YouTube video in PowerPoint.
