Jazz up Your PowerPoint Presentation with Multimedia

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Adding Music or Movies to your PowerPoint presentations can convince that prospective client your company is the one they need to hire.

The best presentation is one that appeals to all the senses (they haven’t figured out how to get smell into PowerPoint yet). Sound effects, like music voice recordings and movies can move your presentations across the threshold from being just a good presentation to the place where it becomes an outstanding one. You can entertain and energize your audience by playing some up tempo music, your company’s jingle, or even better play their jingle. If you do nothing else but play music before and after your presentation, as your audience enters and leaves the room, you have added professionalism to your presentations. Just make sure you don’t use multimedia just because you can, it really needs to add something to the presentation. Use your imagination, good taste, and make sure what you are adding actually adds something to the presentation and you can WOW your audience.

Micro$oft PowerPoint supports media clips, this includes both sound and video files.
The computer you use for the presentation will need a sound card and speakers but if you are using a Mac you wont need to even consider this. You can create the presentation on one computer and play it on another, so make sure the computer system you are presenting on supports sound.

Media Support Table

File	Explanation	Attributes
MIDI	Musical Instrument Digital Interface	Sound
AIF	Apple audio format	Sound
WAV	Microsoft Windows audio format	Sound
MOV	QuickTime video format	Video format with a constant frame rate per second
MPEG	Motion Picture Exerts Group	Standard video format with a constant frame per second rate
AVI	Microsoft Windows video format	Video format with a constant frame rate per second
GIF	Graphical Interface Format	256 color picture that supports animation.Graphical Interface Format

Like all special effects, sound and video can catch the attention of your audience and help to convey your message or emotion better than pictures or words alone. Remember if it is used poorly it can also be distracting and even worse annoying.

Including audio or video is as simple as selecting a file:

Use existing clips by double-clicking one of the Title, Test, and Media Clip layouts from the Slide Layout. Choose one of the media clip Icons.

When you choose a sound file, PowerPoint displays the window below. You can choose for the file to play automatically or when you click on it.

You work on sound files by choosing Movies and Sound from the Insert menu and then selecting Sound from File or Sound from Clip Organizer. You can also record sound or play a track from a CD. After selecting a file, PowerPoint prompts you to specify how you want to execute the file. (see above image)

PowerPoint displays a sound clip as a small icon, which shows during a Slide Show. If you have set the presentation to play the audio automatically you can hide the icon by selecting it and opening the Format Picture window and resizing it to “0″. The icon will no longer show during the presentation but the audio will play. (these directions are for a Mac)

If you want to record your own sound or message you will need a microphone. The quality of your microphone will sow up in your recording. Some software can help this problem but replacing the microphone is usually the more economic way to go.

PowerPoint does make it easy to record your own sounds or narration. Don’t just jump in and start recording. If you are doing a narration you will need a script and rehearsal time. Once you have rehearsed you are ready to record.

1. Choose Record Narration from the Slide Show menu to open the Record Narration dialog box.
2. Choose your Sound input device and your Input source.
3. Click Set Microphone Level to check your microphone.
4. If you need to adjust the quality to CD, radio, or telephone, click Change Quality to open the Sound Selection dialog box. Just remember that quality increases the file’s size. If file size is a concern, you may have to compromise quality just a bit.
5. By default, PowerPoint stores the narration with the presentation.
6. Start recording. As PowerPoint displays your presentation, you narrate just as you want the message played. Continue to narrate each slide until you’re done.
7. At the end of the presentation, PowerPoint will prompt you to save the timings with each slide. This can be helpful if you didn’t get each slide just right and you need more practice

Power point will also record Sounds. Playing a CD, music is a great way to begin or end a presentation. It doesn’t have to be current or even a top 10 song. The instructions to ad a song from a CD follow.

1. Insert the CD
2. From the Insert menu, choose Movies and Sound. Then, select Play CD Auto Track to open the Insert CD Audio dialog box. In PowerPoint 2007, choose Play CD Audio Track from the Sound option’s dropdown list. You’ll find this option in the Media Clips group on the Insert tab.
   1. The Start At Time and End At Time fields let you capture just part of a track instead of using the entire track.
   2. Use the Sound Volume button to control the audio’s volume.
   3. Use the hide icon directions (shown previously) if you don’t want the icon to show during the presentation.
3. PowerPoint lets you play the track by clicking or displaying the slide.

Make sure you are not violating any copyright laws when you include someone else’s music in your presentation.

You can also use custom animation to control your sound and movie files. To do this you select the icon and display the Custom Animation window. Creating custom animations can be time consuming and complicated, chances are you really won’t need this option very often at all.

Remember you can really spruce up a presentation with multimedia but you can also kill one just as easily. Make sure you are using the media to increase the value of the presentation and deliver content on another level through this media and not just adding noise and distraction.

If it is used properly multimedia can really give your the lift they need to get them to the next level.

late,
gary pool

This is a post from Gary Pool’s Search Engine Optimizician&trade blog.

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