I have a presentation which I created on PowerPoint.
I put a sound to it and played it without issues.
And when I played it to another computer where it will be played on the day of my presentation, the sound is not working.
What is the problem here?
Hello Ashton!
First of all, not every type of sound file works with PowerPoint (or with your version of the program), even though they claim it does. You may have used an MP3 file, which is not really recommended. It is better to use a .WAV file when attaching sound to a presentation.
But don't worry, you don't have to get another sound file to use, you can just convert the one that you have using a free online converter. Unfortunately, the .WAV files are really large and usually can't be sent via e-mail.
Secondly, if you say you transferred the presentation on a different computer (either through e-mail or by CD), what might have happened is that the music file wasn't really embedded with the presentation, but rather the presentation only contained a link to the location of the file on your computer. In this case, you have to embed the sound into the presentation.
In order to do so, you must open the PowerPoint normally, click the sound icon on the slide that you want to play the music. Go to Sound Options, click the Options tab and then select the Sound Tools group. Then change the Max Sound File Size (KB ) to the largest setting permitted, meaning 50000 in most of the cases.
This way, the sounds that are under 50 MB will be automatically embedded into the presentation, instead of being linked to. Check to see if the sound was embedded. Follow the same steps but now click the Dialog Box Launcher. There you should see the Sound Options dialog box, which should read down low "Contained in presentation".
I hope this will help you!
The possible reasons why you cannot hear any sounds from your PowerPoint presentation are:
1. The sound file is too large.
2. You inserted an MP3 file instead of WAV file.
3. You sound card driver is outdated.
When you inserted a sound file on your presentation, PowerPoint makes a link to your audio file on the computer instead of embedding it to your presentation. If you move or open your presentation, the sound file remains on your computer and not inside the presentation. Music can be embedded in PowerPoint presentations if you use a WAV file only. So ensure that you are inserting yourmusic.WAV and not yourmusic.MP3.
Try to create a folder for your presentation and save it in your desktop. Put all the sound or music files that you wish to insert in your presentation on that folder. Music files should be placed on that folder before you insert it in your presentation it won't work. Another trick is making PowerPoint think that your MP3 file is actually a WAV file. You can download and install CDex Program
Then do the following:
1. Start CDex and choose Convert and then Add RIFF-WAV(s) header to MP2 or MP3 file(s).
2. Click …button at the Directory text box to search for the folder that has your music file. The folder that you created a while ago that I asked you to save in your Desktop. Then click OK.
3. Choose yourmusic.MP3 that appears on the CDex program list. And then click Convert.
4. This will convert your MP3 sound file to yourmusic.WAV and it will encode a new header to show to PowerPoint that the file is a WAV file instead of MP3 file. The file is still an MP3 file, but it is shown as a WAV file and the size will be much smaller than the MP3 file size.
5. Close and exit the program.
The next thing you need to do is to ensure that the new WAV file is in the folder now. Then open your PP presentation and click Insert tab on the ribbon. Select Sound and click the drop down arrow. Select Sound from File and browse to your newly created WAV file. The new sound icon will appear on your slide. Click the Sound Tools above the ribbon then go to the Sound Options area of the ribbon and click the text box on the Max Sound File Size (KB). Type 50000 on the text area to let a sound file size of up to 50000 KB that can be embedded in your presentation.
Lastly, if the above steps didn't work, try to update your sound card driver. Simply go to your manufacturer's website and see if there is a new update. If there is, download and install it.
