Creating a Basic Slide with Sound

Getting the hang of It....

Open Impress, create an empty slide show with one slide that has a title and the rest is empty. Create a title called: Test Sound Practice. Insert a graphic image, the example shows the sky.gif image from the default file located at:

/opt/OpenOffice.org/share/gallery

Before actually working with sound it is important to understand how Impress works with sounds. One thing that is very important is to realize that Impress associates sound with an object. For example, in the image above no sound options will be available because sound is not associated with an object. However, if the sky.gif is selected and Animation Effects is chosen, sound will be available because the sound will be associated with the selected object. Sound is imported into an Impress presentation with the following 5 steps.

Step One:

Create a slide with an object so sound may be associated with it. Please understand that text is also considered an object. If text will be used as the object, highlight the text to associate it with sound.

Step Two:

The Animation Effects may be accessed by clicking on the Animation icon or open it from the Menu Bar, Slide Show and Effects. Animation offers the option of having text or images fly into the slide. Once the window opens users will see four choices at the top of the Animation window.

The first icon is for animation effects for images. The second icon is for text effects. Choose the Effects icon and then select which effect to have and be sure to click on the green check mark to create the effect. Close the Animation window and click on F9 to run the slide show. There are some effects that will not work with objects, because they are designed for text, or they may not work with some 3D images. The green check mark will not be available if this is the case.

The Animation window has additional option if users select Favorites they will see a long list of options. Notice that the speed of the animation may be changed which is by default Medium.

Once Animation effects is open, select an object from the slide, in the example the object is the sky.gif. With the object selected, choose an animation effect for the object. If no animation is associated with the object choose No Effect. Once No Effect or a Special Effect has been chosen, click the green checkmark.

The green checkmark is the key to making all changes and options work.

Step Three:

Now with the object still selected choose the music option for effects which is located at the top of the window and has a music note located on it. When this button is selected, several other options will appear. The first option at the top provides no color when the image is making the transition or allows the user to choose a specific color for the sound effect.

Step Four:

With the object still selected, choose a sound to associate with the sound effect. One thing to note, each effect has a sound automatically associated with it so that will need to be changed for each specific presentation. One danger is creating a presentation on a computer without sound and not recognizing that if it is played on a computer that has sound, those sounds will be made and may not fit with the project. The folder at the right will allow the choice of a sound file.

If users have more than one animation on a slide they are able to order them by clicking on the order icon. Once all the animations are visible, change the order with drag and drop to the new location.

It is important to understand which sound format will be used for the presentation as the default file type is Sun/NeXT Audio. That format may not be available in the directories that are to be accessed so that type should be changed to sound. Look at the example below which illustrates the default is Sun/neXT.

The important thing to do here is change the format in File Type that will be used for the presentation. In the example below it has been changed to Sound and WAV files are now viewable, WAV files are a common choice for audio. This process will associate a sound with the animation effect that has been chosen for the object.

To preview it click the preview button and then click the green check mark. Sound should be heard in the process. Continue trying sounds until the correct one is located for the project.

Here is a view of the preview window. This should demonstrate the animation and sound like you want before moving onto the next step.

At this point it is important to save correctly to make sure sound will work during the presentation. Close the preview window, click the first button on the animation bar and then be sure to click the green check mark. If the green check mark is not selected as the last thing that is done before the window is closed, it will not save!

That should do it, the slide preview should demonstrate all of the changes made in the program. The process of creating an entire slide show is just repeating these steps with each slide. So far you have seen how to insert sound into the presentation. Use Audacity to record and edit the voice sounds that will be used with the presentation and then follow the steps listed above.