The music you want to add to your presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint can be a background music effect for the whole presentation or a recording for each slide. They can greatly enhance the effect of your presentation as it also attracts the listener by their sense of hearing making your presentation a lot more captivating.
Once you have the music file you want to add to your presentation ready, there are a few simple steps left to do to add it to the presentation. Or if you want to Microsoft PowerPoint lets you can record audio for your presentation with subject to the availability of a microphone on your system. The method to add music to a PowerPoint presentation has remain relatively unchanged in the different versions of PowerPoint so the method below can be used generally for adding music that can be followed on all versions of Microsoft PowerPoint with a few exceptions in the configuration part.
To add music to your presentation, open it.
Click on the Insert tab above. Click the little arrow button below the audio icon, and choose as follows:
For Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, Click on Audio from file. For Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 or later, click on Audio on my PC.
Navigate to the location where your audio file is placed and select it. Then click Insert.
The audio file will be added to the selected slide. Also a speaker icon will appear on your slide representing the audio file.
If you want to record an audio and add it to the presentation, go to the Insert tab and Click the little arrow below the Audio icon on the right most. Click on Record Audio from the drop down menu.
Click the record button to start recording and stop button to stop it. Give it a name and click OK to save it. Your recorded audio file will now be represented by a speaker icon now visible on your slide. You can move the speaker icon around if you want to.
The audio file will play when you click on its speaker icon during the presentation. To play the audio file automatically when you reach that slide, Click on the speaker icon and go to the Playback tab. Next to “Start:” select Automatically from the drop down menu.
You can hide the speaker icon when during the slideshow if you want to. To do so, Click on the speaker icon. Then go to the Playback tab. Place a check next to Hide during show.
To play the audio across all slides in PowerPoint 2010, Click on the speaker icon, and go to the Playback tab. Next to the “Start:” Select Play across slides from the drop down menu.
To do the same in PowerPoint 2013 and later, Click on the speaker icon and go to the Playback tab and place a check next to Play across slides.
If your presentation is longer than the audio files duration, you will have to loop it until the presentation finishes. To do so, Click on the speaker icon and go to the Playback tab and place a check next to Loop until stopped.
You will have nice presentation with your desired music effect ready.
