Several ways you might go about this but you are right, at some point you'll
hit a PowerPoint limitation. You could of course build a custom solution
using VBA (programming) but you can also do it with PowerPoint's features.
You don't say so I am going to make these assumptions. You are running
Windows XP and Office XP or 2003. Its a bit tricky but here are the steps.
Preparation:
1. Open Windows Media Player.
2. Using File Open in the media player navigate to the audio file you wish
to use. and open it.
3. Play the sound file. While it is playing go to "Play" in the menu and
click "Repeat". The audio will now play over and over until you shut it
down.
4. Close the media player.
PowerPoint Features
5. Open PowerPoint and your presentation and navigate to slide you want to
begin playing the audio.
6. Click "Insert" then "Object". (Note, this is NOT "Insert" then "From
File".)
7. In the window that appeared select the "Create From File" Radio Button.
8. Click the "Browse" button, navigate to your audio file, select it.
Click OK to close the window.
Animating It to Play
9. When you clicked ok the file name was inserted on the slide. Right
click on it and select "Custom Animation".
10. In the Animations task pane click "Add Effect" then "Object Actions"
then "Activate Contents".
11. You now have an Object in the Animations list, select "With Previous"
as the start.
That's it, what happens here is that when the contents of the object (your
audio file) is "activated" the Windows Media Player is called to play it.
Because the player is being called you are given a warning that you are
starting an external application, simply tell it yes / ok. The media player
will open as a stand alone application, not under PowerPoint control which
means the "Repeat" setting you made in step 3 is still in effect and the
audio repeats endlessly until stopped. You may see a brief flash of the
media player before the slide is actually displayed, however as soon as the
slide show begins it will be "on top" of everything else so nothing is
visible to the viewer.
Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team
Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress
www.playsforcertain.com