
If you’re saving your presentation to a flash drive, make sure to keep the audio files and the presentation in the same folder. You can also use free audio-editing tools like Audacity or Free Audio Editor to combine two or more audio files into one, thus ensuring that the audio keeps playing for as long as necessary. If the audio you chose is too short to cover the duration of your whole presentation, you can do a test run of the presentation, time it, and insert more audio files on other slides so that there are no silent intervals. In both versions, the file will start playing automatically as soon as you start the slide show. In older versions of PowerPoint, you should click on the dropdown box next to the Start option and select Play across slides from the list.
Under Audio Tools, click on the Playback tab and select the option Play in Background. Once you’ve found it, either double-click on it or select it and then click on Insert. Browse your computer for the file you want to play. If you’re using Office 2010 or an older version, the option will be labeled Audio from File. Go to the Insert tab, click on Audio, and then choose Audio on My PC. If you’re giving a long lecture and just want random, non-distracting music to play in the background, you can also make it part of your presentation and set it to play across multiple slides. Once again, click on the Slide Show tab and then choose “From Beginning” to preview your presentation and see if the audio will start playing from the slide you chose.
Finally, click OK to confirm your changes.
If you don’t want to delay the audio, leave the box empty and move on to the next step.
Simply add the number of seconds that you want to pass before the audio starts.
If you don’t want the audio to start as soon as the slide loads, you can set a custom delay in the designated field. Click on it and select the option labeled With Previous. Next to the word Start, you’ll see a dropdown menu. While in that same tab, under the Stop Playing option, choose After Current Slide. In the Effect tab, select From Beginning under the Start Playing option. Click on the down arrow next to the audio file and select Effect Options… from the dropdown menu. In the Animation Pane, reorganize the items so that the audio file is first on the list.
Click on the Animation Pane next to the Add Animation button. From the media section, choose Play, the first option to the left. Click on the Animations tab and then on Add Animation. As in the previous section, go to the slide during which you want the audio to start playing and click on the Sound icon in the Normal view. If you want to have your audio play from a specific slide and/or with a predefined time delay, the process is a bit more complicated.