Complicated music question

N

Neil

I've got a PowerPoint 2007 presentation (though it is saved as a 2003 file)
for a charity fundraiser, and I am trying to embed music into it. I have
converted the two songs that I want to use into .wav files, and inserted them
into the presentation. The first song plays perfectly. But the second song
just won't play -- the slides continue to advance, but without music.

I have increased the Max Sound File to 50000. I have tried "start on
click," "start with previous," and "start with next." I have tried "play
sound across slides," "automatically," and "when clicked." I have it set to
"start playing from beginning." I am using Custom Animation, and have tried
to make the "transition sound" the .wav file I want. In short, I have spent
hours on this, and am at my wits end!

If it makes a difference, the songs are about 43MB each. Is there a total
limit, other than the 50000 per file limit?

Thanks so much for helping -- it's for a good cause!
 
N

Neil

Hi,

I would like the second song to follow the first. Right now, I have the
first song starting on slide #1, and the second song starting on slide #30.
But slide #30 comes and goes, and the music doesn't start.

Thanks for your help!
Neil
 
N

Neil

Sorry, I forgot to answer the second question. It would be much, much better
if the songs were embedded. That way I could post the entire presentation to
a storage service on the web (I'm in Cambodia, and need to get the
presentation to Chicago).

Thanks again.
 
A

Austin Myers

Neil,

You may want to give a quick read of this tutorial explaining how PowerPoint
plays media in the presentation.
http://www.playsforcertain.com/tutorial.htm

Now is there any chance the non-playing wav has a long name? I ask as
PowerPoint has an issue with playing media files that have a long path/file
name. (Try moving the presentation and wav files to a folder with a very
short path. Example: "C:\test".) Once done delete them from the
presentation and then reinsert them while navigating to your test folder
where they and the presentation are located.

If that fails, test the files in the Windows MCI player. (Explained in the
tutorial.) If it won't play in the MCI player, it is never going to play in
PowerPoint.

If you are still having problems holler back and we'll see if we can't pin
it down.



Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCPro, PFCMedia and PFCExpress
www.playsforcertain.com
 
N

Neil

John and Austin,

Thanks so much for your replies. I thought we had the answer, but it turns
out that we're closer but not yet there.

When I read your replies I thought: "Of John and Austin's suggestions,
which is easiest to test out?" So first I tried changing the song's name
from "Beautiful Day" to "Day." No luck. And I almost skipped over the
suggestion to try moving the music file since the first song, which has
always played, is in the same (admittedly buried) file. But I decided to try
it and it worked. Here's the problem:

Moving the .wav file to C:\temp definitely did something -- the second file
wouldn't play when it was in that buried file, and it did play when it was
located in C:\temp. But when I deleted the .wav file from C:\temp to make
sure that the song was actually embedded, it wouldn't play. In short, it
seems to have been linked instead of embedded. Then I decided to see if the
same was true for the first song, and I removed it from the buried file where
it was located. It turns out that file WAS embedded -- it still plays even
when the "source" file is removed.

Two more pieces of info: First, I tried deleting both music files from the
presentation, moving the both files to C:\temp, and embedding them both from
there. I still have the same problem -- the first song plays, the second
does not. But here's the interesting thing -- something must be happening.
Because when I started doing all of these things in response to your
suggestions, the presentation was "only" 134MB. Now it is 176MB, and the
second song is almost 42MB. So it almost looks like it IS now embbeded.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks again,
Neil
 
N

Neil

John and Austin,

Thanks so much for your replies. I thought we had the answer, but it turns
out that we're closer but not yet there.

When I read your replies I thought: "Of John and Austin's suggestions,
which is easiest to test out?" So first I tried changing the song's name
from "Beautiful Day" to "Day." No luck. And I almost skipped over the
suggestion to try moving the music file since the first song, which has
always played, is in the same (admittedly buried) file. But I decided to try
it and it worked. Here's the problem:

Moving the .wav file to C:\temp definitely did something -- the second file
wouldn't play when it was in that buried file, and it did play when it was
located in C:\temp. But when I deleted the .wav file from C:\temp to make
sure that the song was actually embedded, it wouldn't play. In short, it
seems to have been linked instead of embedded. Then I decided to see if the
same was true for the first song, and I removed it from the buried file where
it was located. It turns out that file WAS embedded -- it still plays even
when the "source" file is removed.

Two more pieces of info: First, I tried deleting both music files from the
presentation, moving the both files to C:\temp, and embedding them both from
there. I still have the same problem -- the first song plays, the second
does not. But here's the interesting thing -- something must be happening.
Because when I started doing all of these things in response to your
suggestions, the presentation was "only" 134MB. Now it is 176MB, and the
second song is almost 42MB. So it almost looks like it IS now embbeded.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks again,
Neil
 
N

Neil

Another near success.

I studied the link you sent me and made adjustments to convert the
instructions from PPT 2003 to PPT 2007. Since I had tried Method 2, I tried
Method 1. Incredibly, it worked. So I saved the file and ran through the
slide presentation a second time. This time, the second slide once again
didn't play.

Any additional suggestions greatly appreciated!
Neil
 
J

John Wilson

To check if sound is embedded, select the icon and click sound tools (above
the ribbon)

use the dropdown menu "Sound Options" - at the bottom you will see "File"
and either a link path or 'Contained in Presentation'

Try adding as a transition sound - if it's not really a true wav it wont
insert.
--
Amazing PPT Hints, Tips and Tutorials

http://www.PPTAlchemy.co.uk
http://www.technologytrish.co.uk
email john AT technologytrish.co.uk
 
N

Neil

Thanks for the quick reply.

In the version that I was working on yesterday, and about which I posted my
initial question, both songs say "Contained in Presentation."

Then today, in response to a reply from Austin Myers, I made a new version
of the presentation and tried inserting it as a transition sound. And here's
where it gets really strange: when I first did that, the second song played.
When I immediately went back to check it, it did not play. I've tried it a
good number of times after that (closing PPT, rebooting my computer, etc.),
and on one occassion the second song again played, but the other times it did
not.

Might the presentation just be too big? It's 130MB. But I'm running it on
a Dual Core processor with 2GB of RAM.

Thanks again,
Neil
 

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