Voice-over narration in PowerPoint

The Voice-Over Narration feature in PowerPoint allows story tellers to speak their stories and time their descriptions to match the images. All that is required is a microphone plugged into the sound card. Microphones can be purchased inexpensively at any local electronics or computer store.

---

A Quick Microphone Test

If you know your microphone works, you may skip the test description. However, the test illustrates how to use Sound Recorder, which is an excellent utility. If your microphone works, and you want to learn about Sound Recorder, do the test.

     3 Steps

     1. Windows users turn on the built-in Sound Recorder. Go to Start >Run and type in sndrec32

     2. Click the red-dot icon (record), speak into your microphone, click the black rectangle to stop.

     3. Click on the right-triangle icon to play (to save, use menu item File >Save)

Open Sound Recorder: Start >Run  sndrec32

4. If you hear your voice in playback, all is well. You are ready to record narration. If you do not hear any playback sound, and your computer sound works in other programs, then read the troubleshooting tips at the bottom of this page. If you have no sound at all on your computer, your troubleshooting needs are beyond the scope of this course.

---

Recording Narration... in PowerPoint

     When you begin this process, here's what happens:
     (These steps are repeated with illustrations below)

• Begin the process by clicking Slide Show >Record Narration...

• The first window to open shows the default sound settings

• If you are happy with the default sound quality, click OK and continue. Your slideshow will begin

• Speak into the microphone as each slide comes up

• Advance your presentation with the left mouse click (which is quiet) or the spacebar (which can be noisy and overheard in the finished presentation). Pause briefly before and after each slide change so your voice is not cut off during the transition

• When the show finishes, a window appears that asks if you want to save the sounds and timings. Select Save

• Now, view the presentation. If it sounds and plays the way you like it, you are finished

• If you want to re-do the voice-over narration, Hit CONTROL + Z to UNDO your narration (z + Z on the Mac). Begin again

Record-Narration Menu

Record narration by selecting Slide Show >Record Narration...

 

First Window in Record Narration Process

You can just click OK.   If you want to experiment with different sound quality settings (higher quality = larger sound files) read the Sidebar Lesson on Steps and Suggestions for Changing Quality of Sound in PowerPoint Narration below. 

Steps and Suggestions for Changing Quality of
Sound in PowerPoint Narration Sidebar Lesson

      After the narration session finishes, you will be asked to save the narrations. Select Save

 

Thumbnails of a narrated presentation

Narrated presentations advance automatically.
The time stamps below each slide show how long each slide will remain on the screen

 
End