If you’re using Office 2007 or 2003, click here. If you want to play multiple songs throughout a presentation, you could try to line them up by spacing them out between your slides, but you’ll likely find it easier and less jarring to create a new file that combines all of the songs into one, back-to-back. See the next section for details.

If you want to use a song from iTunes, you’ll need to convert it to MP3 first by right-clicking on the song in iTunes and selecting “Create MP3 Version”. Click here for more details. WAV files can be quite large, and can make the PowerPoint presentation difficult to share. Consider converting the WAV file to MP3. You can do this by importing the WAV into iTunes, or by using a free online converter. Click here for more details.

Note: The “Online Audio” option no longer works, so if the song you want is online, you’ll need to download it to your computer first. [1] X Research source

If you want the song to start automatically and play in the background across all of your slides, select the “Play in Background” option in the Playback tab. This will set the song to start automatically, continue playing when slides are changed, loop when finished, and hide the sound button. The song will start playing immediately when that slide is opened. If you prefer to click the button to start the sound instead, select “No Style” from the Playback tab. The song will play when you click the audio button. You can change the look of the button using the Format tab. This will let you design a button or import a picture to use instead.

Add bookmarks to the track. When you hover over the audio object, you’ll see a track time slider. Select a spot on the track and click the “Add Bookmark” button to create a clickable bookmark at that point in the track. This will allow you to quickly jump to specific spots. Click the “Trim Audio” button to cut out unnecessary parts of the song. Useful for songs that are too long, or that you only need a piece of. Use the sliders in the Trim Audio window to select the new starting and ending point for the song. Use the Fade Duration options to set the fade in and fade out times. The longer the duration, the more gradual the fade will be. Use the Volume button to adjust the master volume for the song. Make sure to test the song before the presentation and adjust the volume accordingly so that you don’t startle the audience.

If your presentation file is under 20 MB, you can probably attach it to an email to send to others. If it’s any larger, you may want to consider using a service like Dropbox or Google Drive to share it.

Click and drag to select the portion of the track that is silent. Make sure you don’t delete pauses during a song, as it can make the song sound off. It’s also good to leave a second or two of silence in between each song. Click the “Cut” button at the top of the window to delete the selection.

Click the File menu and select “Export Audio. . . “. Ensure that the “Save as type” field is set to “MP3 Files”. Name the file so that you know it is the combined soundtrack and save it in an easy to find location. Click Save and then click OK, unless you want to change any of the MP3 tag information. Wait for the export to complete. It may take a few minutes for Audacity to put together and save your new MP3 file.

In Office 2003, click the Insert menu, select “Movies and Sounds”, and then select “Sound from File”. Since PowerPoint 2003 and 2007 cannot embed MP3 files, you’ll have the most success if you create a new folder on your computer and put the presentation file along with the audio file in the same spot. You can embed WAV files, but this can create a very large presentation file. It is recommended that you use a linked MP3 file instead.

If you set the song to play automatically, check the “Hide During Show” box to hide the button for the audio file.

Click the Office button, select “Publish”, then “Package for CD”. Enter the name of the folder you want to create in the “Name the CD” box. Click “Options” and ensure that “Include linked files” is checked. Click the “Copy to Folder” button. A new folder will be created with your presentation and the audio file, along with a PowerPoint player so that anyone can view the presentation, even if they don’t have Office.