Web Construction with FrontPage:
General Issues,
Creating/Opening Locally
Opening "Live",
The Editing Environment/Themes,
Fonts and Text Editing,
Whole-page formatting,
Placing Images,
Tables,
Hyperlinks and Menus,
Website Structure, and Publishing your Site,
Classroom uses

Multimedia on the Web:
The Playing Field
Images
Music and Sound
Video
"Fair Use" and Copyright
Streaming on the Web
Image Sources

Multimedia and PowerPoint:
PowerPoint Animations
Sound and Music
Video

The Web Applied:

Elsewhere on this site:
General Instructional Technology
Presentation/Web
Imaging
Sound
Video,
Home

Presentation/Web: MultiMedia in your PowerPoint - Sound and Music

    To get a complete discussion of sound file formats, see Sound File Formats.  All formats mentioned there (MP3, WAV, RA, MIDI) will play in PowerPoint, though they're not all on equal footing. In addition, a PowerPoint presentation will use a simple music CD.

    Sounds can be inserted a variety of ways into PowerPoint.  The simplest is to include the sound as a part of an animation - see PowerPoint animations to see how to do this.  Sound inserted this way should be a small WAV file. Dozens are available directly in the animation dialog box, or you may browse to find your own.  In addition, an entire gallery of sound effects are available through the menu item "Insert/Movies and Sounds/Sound from Gallery."  Review the warning about overuse of sound effects in PowerPoint Animations.  If you intend to insert music or long voice-overs or other sounds, the choices become more complex.

    The same limitations with Real Audio (RA) and MIDI files discussed on the Sound File Formats page apply here.  For instance, RA files need a helping program to run (Real Player) which must be present on the computer running the PowerPoint presentation.  In addition, PowerPoint must call Real Player, hence execution of the presentation stops and control leaves PowerPoint until the RA file is played - this means that animation settings may do unpredictable things if used in conjunction with RA files. This is different than WAV, MIDI, or MP3 files which are handled from within PowerPoint, thereby working seamlessly with its other settings.

    MIDI is dependent on the quality of the client computer's sound card, which can be low.  Almost all the stock music files offered by PowerPoint under "Insert/Movies and Sounds/Sound from Gallery" are MIDI files, and hence should be used only if you're pinched for time or you are certain of (and happy with) the quality of the computer running the MIDI files. 

    If you wish to use music from a CD for background, and you are certain the CD will be present every time the PowerPoint presentation is run, that is the simplest and easiest way to accomplish this.  However, if you wish your PowerPoint to run on any computer, or you want to avoid keeping track of a music CD, you'll need a WAV or MP3-format file. Of these two, WAV is only useful for short sound effects, since long musical selections or narratives will be quite large as WAV files, noticeably slowing down the start of such files.  Once again, MP3's are a better choice.  For converting between formats, see Sound File Formats.