All about Inserting Audio in PowerPoint 2013

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One of the ways to make your PowerPoint presentation come alive is to add audio to your slides. In this series of articles we will cover the following aspects of adding audio to your slides.

  1. Inserting audio to a slide
  2. Different options for playing back the audio
  3. Editing the audio clip in PowerPoint
  4. Changing the icon used for audio clip

Since each of these aspects involves considerable understanding, we will cover the aspects in a series of articles. In the first article in this series, we will talk about Inserting audio in PowerPoint 2013.

First let us start with the reasons why you may want to add an audio to your presentation.

Why would you insert an audio?

Some of the reasons include:

  • If you create a self-running presentation, you may want to add light background music
  • You may want to add voiceovers to the slides and even create videos with them.
  • Add a sound clip of customer or vendor feedback
  • Add a sound clip of a senior member in the organization speaking
  • Use sound effects to add punch or humor….etc.

Examples of using audio in PowerPointNow that we have explored some reasons for inserting audio clips, let us see how to…

1. Inserting audio into a slide:

To insert an audio file to your slide, go to ‘Insert’ tab in PowerPoint ribbon. In the far right corner you would find the icon for Audio as shown here:

Insert Audio Option in PowerPointWhen you click on the option, you would have the following drop down menu:

You can either insert audio from an online source, insert audio on your computer or record audio.

Sources to insert audioLet us explore each of the options now.

Option 1: Inserting audio from an online source

When you click on insert ‘online audio’ option you will be taken to a dialog box which points to Office.com clipart site where you can download audio files. Many of them are Royalty Free Music pieces. It is a good idea to check the license terms when in doubt.

Microsoft Office Audio ClipsYou just need to click on the file and press ‘Insert’ to download the file to your slide.

Quick note : If you are looking for a lot more options for audio or need to use Royalty free music for your project, you can take a look at the high-quality tracks available over at Shutterstock. 

Option 2: Insert music files from your PC

When you choose ‘Audio on my PC’ option, you can choose a music file from your PC and insert it onto your slide.

Once inserted, you will get some interesting options to edit the audio clip inside PowerPoint.

Options to Edit PowerPoint AudioAnother article in this series will deal with the aspect of editing of audio clips in detail. In that article we will discuss the various options to playback the audio clip in PowerPoint.

Option 3. Record Audio

This option will pop up an option to start recording an audio from your computer microphone. More about this option in the another  article in this series.

If you found this article, please leave us a comment below. You will find 200+ PowerPoint tutorials on this site.

Related: 5 Things you didn’t know about Clipboard option

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