Adding sounds and movies

Sound and movie files (also called media clips) can be inserted into your PowerPoint presentation for a multimedia effect. As with clipart and images, be sure the sound or movie supports your presentation topic and presentation. Don’t use it if it isn’t part of your message. Overuse can clutter a presentation. Don’t have sound on every slide or with every animation.

Also, keep in mind copyright laws. Clips that you retrieve from Microsoft Clip Gallery are approved for use in PowerPoint presentations, but you can’t resell them as part of another clip collection or as part of a PowerPoint show you have created. You will need to check copyright rules for any clips that you get from other sources.
Adding sounds

Sound Media clips can be obtained from your own sources or from those you can download from the Microsoft web site Clip Gallery. To use media clips, you need to have a sound card, microphone (if you plan on recording your own sound), and speakers installed on your computer and on the computer you will be presenting the show on. Common sound media clip file formats that PowerPoint Player can play include:

• MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a standard created by electronic musical equipment vendors and usually some type of music.
• WAV - Microsoft Windows audio format. WAV is a sound format from Microsoft and is typically a sound effect or someone speaking.

Other types of files may be played using the Windows Media Player. Inserting these types of files into PowerPoint to play is not covered in this lesson. To find out how to do this, please refer to the PowerPoint Help or to Microsoft online or to other sources.

Sounds can be added three different ways in PowerPoint. You can add sound as a separate object on the page, as part of the slide transition and as part of the animation of an object on the page.
To add sounds as a separate object on a page:
1. Open the page you want to add sound to.
2. Click on Insert - Movies and Sound from the menu bar. Choose either Sound from Gallery (this is Microsoft Clipart gallery) or Sound from File.
a. The Sound from Gallery dialog box is similar to the clipart dialog box only you will see sounds instead of clipart images. From this dialog box you can also click on Clips Online to go to the Microsoft Online Clip gallery to choose a sound. Select the sound from the Gallery and click OK.
b. The Sound from File dialog box lets you find and choose the sound file from your computer or a network drive. Locate the file and click OK.
3. The Microsoft paperclip guy shows up with the questions: “Do you want your sound to play automatically in the slide show? If not, it will play when you click it.” Choose yes or no. Saying no will require either a mouse click or mouse over to activate it in the slide show. I couldn’t find a way to change it to play automatically once I said no except by reinserting the sound again.
4. Run the slide show and the sound will play.
To add sounds as a part of the slide transition:
1. Open the Slide Transition dialog box.
2. Pick one of the sounds listed in the dropdown box or choose Other Sound to go to a dialog box to locate the sound file of your choice.
3. Select the sound file.
4. You can also check the box to have the sound loop until the next sound comes on or you stop the sound in the next transition. When you loop the sound, it will not stop at the beginning of the next slide unless you have selected a new sound or have selected to ‘stop previous sound’ in the sound dropdown box.
5. Click OK.
6. Assign a transition or animation to your slide. In order for the sound to work, you need to have assigned a transition or animation to the slide.
7. The sound you have chosen will be heard when you run the show and the slide transitions to the next slide.
   
To add sounds as part of the animation of an object:
1. Open the Custom Animation dialog box.
2. Pick one of the sounds listed in the dropdown box or choose Other Sound to go to a dialog box to locate the sound file of your choice.
3. Select the sound file.
4. Click OK.
5. Assign an animation to your slide. In order for the sound to work, you need to have assigned an animation to the slide. Looping the sound is not available in the animation dialog box.
6. The sound you have chosen will be heard when you run the show and the animation is activated.
To delete a media clip, select it and press the Delete key on the keyboard.
Adding Movies

TV movies are seen at 30 frames per second and is fast enough for the images to appear lifelike. Much of the video shown through computers is only at 15 frames per second. At times you can get synchronization problems with voice and video after viewing the video for a while. That's when the video and voice get out of sync. Also video clips can be huge files, and storage and speed of these files becomes an issue when showing them in a computer show. Computers are getting faster but not everyone uses the most current technology yet.

I have condensed instructions for inserting video into a PowerPoint show from several resources. If you do try to use a movie clip in a screen show and have troubles, you will need to refer to Microsoft support online at the Microsoft web site or your own computer support personnel as I have limited experience in actually doing this.

 

The following types of movie files can be played by Microsoft Windows Media Player.

Format File name Extensions
Microsoft Windows Media .avi, .asf, .asx, .rmi, .wma, .wax
Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) .mpg, .mpeg, .m1v, .mp2, .mp3, .mpa, .mpe
Apple QuickTime®, Macintosh® AIFF Resource .qt, .aif, .aifc, .aiff, .mov
UNIX .au
To add a movie:
1. Select the slide you want to add the video to.
2.

Choose Insert - Movies and Sound and choose either Movie from File or Movie from Gallery.

a. If you click on Movie from File, locate the folder that contains the video, and then double-click the video you want.
You are prompted to click Yes if you want the movie to play automatically when you move to the slide, or to click No if you want the movie to play only when you click the movie during a slide show.
b. If you click on Movie from Gallery, you will need to be connected to the Internet as this command will take you to the Microsoft Online Gallery collection of clipart, sounds and movie clips. Once there, locate the movie clip you want and insert it onto your slide.
If you get a message indicating that you cannot insert a movie, you may need to install the driver or change your configuration settings. For information, see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q212409, PPT2000: Unable to Insert a Movie from the Selected File and have your computer support person help correct the problem if you aren’t familiar with editing the config files of your machine. If you make the corrections yourself and are not really sure what you are doing, you could possibly mess up your computer and make it so more than just movies don’t work in PowerPoint. Be very careful if you have to edit any files on your computer system.

After you insert the movie, you can choose options that let you control how the movie will be played and how it will interact with the rest of your presentation.
3. Select the movie placeholder you want to set options for.
4. On the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation, and then click the Multimedia Settings tab.
5. Select the options you want, or click More Options.
Tip: You can also apply an animation effect to a movie icon - for example, you can have the movie icon “fly in” from the left side of the slide and then begin to play during a movie clip.
6. Run the presentation as a slide show and then click the movie file.
Optimize your system for playing movies in PowerPoint 97/2000
  Several factors can affect your computer’s ability to play movies smoothly:
1. Processor and disk speed, display, and disk space
2. Microsoft Windows® version
3. ActiveMovie/DirectVideo or Windows Media™ player version

Be sure that your computer has the necessary speed, screen resolution, disk space, and operating system recommended for Microsoft Office installation. If you are not experiencing the performance you would like, a higher processor and disk speed and better screen resolution, plus more disk space may be required.

You will encounter the best performance when Windows Media Player 6.4 is installed (Media Player Home).

If you observe graininess or distortion in these movie clips, you can get information about minimizing this from the Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q198333, PPT2000: Inserted Movies Appear Grainy When Played.

   
Animated GIFs Add Motion to PowerPoint 2000 Slide Shows

Animated GIF files contain a series of GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) images that are displayed in rapid sequence to produce an animated effect. These can be used in PowerPoint 2000 and will play automatically during a slide show. While in Normal view or Slide Sorter view, the animated GIFs will appear as static pictures.

To insert an Animated GIF from Clipart Gallery:
1. Display the slide where the animated GIF will appear.
2. Choose Insert - Picture - From clipart.
3. On the Motion clips tab, choose a category and click on the click you want.
4. Choose Insert Clip (the first button on the menu that appears when you click a clip).
5. Choose Close (button marked with an “X”) in the upper right corner of the Clip Gallery dialog box.
6. To view the animated GIF picture, run the Slide Show.
To Insert Animated GIFs from File
1. Display the slide where the animated GIF will appear.
2. Choose Insert - Picture - From File.
3. In the Insert Picture dialog box, locate the file and select it.
4. Choose Insert.
5. To view the animated GIF picture, run the Slide Show.

PowerPoint Lessons Table of Contents

Last updated January 2002. These courses are copyrighted by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Communications and Information Technology. Contact Lana Johnson at ljohnson1@unl.edu