PowerPoint.Advanced.Presentation.Techniques [Electronic resources]

Because it's There...

Let's get something straight: "because it's possible" is not a good reason for using sound in a presentation. Nobody in the audience is going to think you are clever for figuring out how to insert gratuitous sound effects into your show. Sounds should serve the purpose of the presentation.

That said, there are many legitimate reasons for using sounds in a presentation. Just make sure you are clear on what your reasons are before you start working with them. Here are some ideas:

You can assign a recognizable sound, such as a beep or a bell, to each slide, so that when your audience hears the sound, they know to look up and read the new slide.

You can record a short voice-over message from a CEO or some other important person who couldn't be there in person.

You can punctuate important points with sounds or use sounds to add occasional humorous touches.

However, if you are trying to pack a lot of information into a short presentation, you should avoid sounds as they take up time playing. You should also avoid sounds and other whimsical touches if you are delivering very serious news. You may also want to avoid sounds if you will be using a very old and slow computer to present because any kind of media clip will slow such a system down even more, both when loading the presentation and when presenting it.

Keeping all this in mind, there are several ways to include a sound in a presentation:

You can place a sound icon on the slide so that the sound plays whenever anyone points to or clicks the icon. This is useful in an interactive presentation because it gives the audience a choice of whether to play the sound.

You can associate the sound with an object, such as a graphic, so that the sound plays when anyone points to or clicks that object. This is another good one for interactive presentations.

You can associate a sound with an animation effect so that the sound plays when the animation effect occurs.

You can associate a sound with a slide transition so that the sound plays when the next slide appears.

You can insert a sound that plays automatically in the background as the presentation progresses, like a soundtrack. This can either be a sound clip or a track from an audio CD.

You can record voice-over narration that explains the slides to the audience as they watch them. This is good for stand-alone presentations without a live speaker.