PowerPoint.Advanced.Presentation.Techniques [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Fine-Tuning Sound Play Settings

When you insert a sound, as you saw earlier in the chapter, you choose Automatically or When Clicked as the trigger. The following sections explain how to fine-tune those settings.

Mouse Click and Mouse Over

Any object in PowerPoint can be set up to do something when the mouse clicks it, when the mouse points at it, both, or neither. "Something" can be anything from playing itself (if it's a playable object like a sound or video), running an application, exiting the presentation, or just about anything else.

In the case of a sound file, if you chose When Clicked as the trigger when inserting it, PowerPoint sets it to be triggered by the Mouse Click action setting. To see this, do the following:

Right-click the sound file and choose Action Settings.

Check the setting on the Mouse Click tab. If you chose When Clicked when you inserted the sound, the Object Action will be set to Play, as shown in Figure 12-4. If you chose Automatically when you inserted the sound, None will be chosen here instead.

Figure 12-4: The Action Settings dialog box specifies that a sound should play when clicked.

You can also set the sound to play when the mouse pointer moves over the icon, on the Mouse Over tab. This tab's buttons and controls are identical to those on the Mouse Click tab. You can have separate settings for the mouse click and mouse over actions, and one does not preclude the other. For example, you can specify that the sound play both on mouse click and mouse over.

Adjusting the Sound Play Settings for Custom Animation

When you choose Automatically as the setting when inserting the sound, it sets it up to play at the exact moment that the sound icon appears on-screen, with no delay. You can change this so that there is a delay, you can mix the sound icon in with other custom animation sequences, or you can turn it off so that the sound does not play automatically at all.

As mentioned earlier, the Automatically setting configures a custom animation event for the sound clip. To see those settings, choose Slide Show⇨Custom Animation. The Custom Animation task pane appears. The clip will have an After Previous designation and appear at the top of the list (see Figure 12-5).

Figure 12-5: Custom Animation settings let you fine-tune when a sound will play.

Notice in Figure 12-5 the following points:

There is a 0 next to the sound icon and also next to its entry in the task pane. Numbering for custom animation starts with 0, and this is the first (and only) custom animation set up for this particular slide.

The clock icon next to the clip in the task pane indicates that it is set to play automatically. If it were set to play on mouse click, it would be a mouse icon instead.

The Start setting is After Previous, which means that the event will occur when the previous event has finished. In this case it is the first event on the slide, so there is no previous event. Therefore, the appearance of the slide itself is the previous event, and the sound will play immediately after the slide appears.

TURNING AUTOMATIC PLAY ON/OFF

To turn off the automatic play for the clip, open the Start drop-down list and choose Start on Click. This will make the sound play only when a mouse click occurs (see Figure 12-6). If you want to disable it from playing completely, delete it from the Custom Animation task pane entirely by selecting it there and pressing Delete.

Figure 12-6: Choose when the sound should begin to play.

It's important to note that the mouse click described above is not the same mouse click event as the On Click action from the Action Settings dialog box (see Figure 12-4). The On Click event in the Action Settings box refers specifically to clicking the sound icon. The Start On Click action in the Custom Animation task pane refers to any click when the mouse is pointing anywhere on the slide.

DELAYING OR REPEATING THE SOUND

Depending on the situation it may be useful to have the sound play after a short delay, or to repeat it more than once. In Chapter 14 you will learn more about setting animation options, but here's a quick set of steps specifically for sounds:

Display the Custom Animation task pane if it does not already appear.

On the slide, select the icon for the sound. A gray box appears around its name in the task pane.

Click the down arrow next to the clip's name on the task pane and choose Timing. The Play Sound dialog box appears with the Timing tab displayed.

Enter a number of seconds in the Delay box. The delay will be between the time the previous event happens (such as the slide appearing initially) and the sound begins.

Open the Repeat list and choose a number of times that the sound should repeat (2, 3, 4, 5, 10, Until Next Click, or Until Next Slide). You can also type in a number if you want some other number than the one shown.

(Optional) Click the Triggers button to open the additional controls, as shown in Figure 12-7.

If you chose On Click for the start, do one of the following:

If the sound should play when any click occurs, choose Animate as part of click sequence.

If the sound should play when a specific object is clicked (and this can be the sound icon itself but does not necessarily need to be), choose Start effect on click of and then choose the object from the drop-down list.

Figure 12-7: Use the Timing controls to set a delay for when the sound will play.

Click OK.

SPECIFYING START AND STOP POINTS

There might be times when you'll want to start the clip from some point other than the beginning. For example, maybe you recorded a really good sound clip except that the first five seconds are garbled or contain something inappropriate for your use.

Professionals typically edit sounds in a third-party editing program rather than trying to edit them in PowerPoint, as you get much more precise controls. However, the following will serve to set up rough start and stop points.

To control the starting point for a clip, do the following:

From the Custom Animation task pane, open the menu for the sound clip (click the down arrow next to it) and choose Effect Options. The Play Sound dialog box opens with the Effect tab displayed, as shown in Figure 12-8.

In the Start Playing area, choose one of these options:

From beginning to use the default play mode.

From last position if you want it to pick up where you left off when you stopped it earlier.

From time, and then enter the number of seconds into the clip that the clip should begin playing.

Figure 12-8: Specify at what point the clip will start and stop.

In the Stop Playing area, choose one of these options:

On click to stop the sound with the next mouse click.

After current slide to stop the sound when the slide is replaced by another on-screen or when the clip finishes playing the specified number of times, whichever comes first.

After_slides and then enter a number of slides.

Click OK.

SPECIFYING THE SOUND VOLUME

When you give your presentation, you can specify an overall volume for it through the computer's volume control in Windows. However, sometimes you might want one sound to be more or less loud in comparison to the others.

To change the volume for a specific sound, right-click its icon and choose Edit Sound Object. The Sound Options dialog box opens. Click the speaker icon button in the dialog box to display a volume slider, and then drag it up or down (see Figure 12-9).

Figure 12-9: Adjust the volume for an individual sound in comparison to the baseline volume for the entire presentation.

The sound will play at a consistent volume throughout the duration of the clip; you can't make it play louder or softer at different points. If you need that capability, use a sound-editing program on the clip before inserting it in PowerPoint.