If you want to creat a presentation in Microsoft PowerPoint that will run online or includes audio throughout the entire presentation, you can record narration to accompany the PowerPoint file.
First, when you’re in normal view, select the thumbnail in the slides pane on the left for the slide in which you want the narration to begin. Then, click the slideshow tab in the top navigation. And in the setup group, click the button to record narration. PowerPoint will open the dialogue box where you can adjust the levels and the quality of your recording.
So first, select the button to set the microphone level and specify the volume setting. Then click Okay. Next, select the button to change quality and then the first drop down menu, choose the quality for the recording. CD quality is the highest quality and the telephone quality is the lowest, of course the higher the sound quality, the larger the file size.
When you’ve made your selection, the attributes will change automatically and you can click Okay. Now, down at the bottom of the dialogue box, you can choose whether to link the narration recording to the presentation. Just check the box to link and then browse to select the folder in which you want to save the file. If you don’t link the narration, it’s actually embedded into your presentation. So by linking it, you can keep your keep your presentation file at a manageable size. You just need to remember to save the link narration file to the same folder as your presentation on your hard drive or external media.
Now, it’s time to start recording. As soon as you click Okay in the dialogue box, the slide that you chose as the first slide for your narration will open in slideshow view. Just an FYI, if you choose a slide other than the first one in your presentation to record your narration, you’ll get a little pop up box asking if you want to start recording from that slide or from the first slide. You can just speak your narration into the microphone and the audio will be recorded with that slide.
When you’re done with the narration for that slide, click on the slide to advance to the next one. Wherever you start, you can just keep recording the narration and clicking on the slide to advance to the next slide at the appropriate time in your presentation. If you need to take a breather at any point, just right mouse click on the slide that you’re in and select Pause Narration. Then, when you’re ready to get rolling again, just right mouse click again and select Resume Narration.
Once you’ve recorded your whole presentation and you get to the black screen that tells you you’re at the end of a slideshow, click on that screen to save your narration. The dialogue box will also ask you whether you want to save the slide timings with your narration. When you select Save, you presentation will appear in Slide Sorter View with the timings displayed under each slide. If you choose Don’t Save, PowerPoint will still save your recorded narration but not the timing and you’ll just go back to the first slide. You may want to turn of the timing if it doesn’t benefit the presentation. For example, if you accidentally included long pauses between slides, turning off the timing also gives the viewer the option to control the pacing.
Now, you can choose one of the buttons in the top navigation to run your slideshow from the beginning or to select a slide and run it from that spot. So, you can test the timings and the recorded narration. If you decide that you want to run the slideshow with the narration but without the save timings, select the Slideshow tab the top navigation and then the setup group select Setup Slideshow. You’ll see here in the dialogue box, there’s an option to Advanced Slides manually instead or with the recorded timings. Depending on your audience, you can also choose the show type and show options here on the left. And when you’re done making your selections, click Okay.
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