Powerful PowerPoint for Educators: Using Visual Basic for Applications to Make PowerPoint Interactive

Sound for Buttons
In Fig ure 2.11 (page 26), you will no tice that you can check “Play Sound”
at the bot tom of the Action Settings dialog box. From the drop-down menu be -
low that, you can choose from a few of the canned sounds that come with
PowerPoint. You can also pick a sound file by choosing “Other Sound . . . ” from
the bot tom of the list.
You might no tice, how ever, that there is no op tion for recording your own
sound. Because this is the most use ful op tion for sounds for educational pur -
poses, it is im portant to be able to do this. You might want a but ton to say where
you are go ing when you click on it, you might want a but ton to read the text on a
slide, or you might want to pro nounce a vo cabulary word when the word is
clicked. This is all pos sible in PowerPoint.
Earlier in this chap ter you learned how to re cord a sound to place it into
your pre sen ta tion by choos ing “Movies and Sounds” from the In sert menu. Un -
fortunately, you did not have a choice about the icon used for the sound. The
icon was al ways a little speaker. Per haps you can com promise and use that icon
instead of a but ton, but that will not work for vo cabulary words. The so lution is
to add the sound with the speaker icon and then delete the icon. Re member that I
warned you to always give your sound a sensible name when recording it? Now
is the time you will use that name. Once you have recorded a sound, it is part of
the presentation. It re mains part of the pre sentation even if you delete the icon
that plays the sound.
28 Tra di tional Mul ti me dia Fea tures of PowerPoint

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If you want a sound as 
sociated with a but 
ton, word, or any other
PowerPoint ob ject, perform the following steps:
1.
Go to the In sert menu, choose “Movies and Sounds,” and choose
“Re cord Sound” from the flyout menu.
2.
Record the sound as de scribed in the “Sounds” section earlier in this
chapter. Be sure to give the sound a name other than “Re corded
Sound.”
3.
Click once on the sound icon to select it and hit the De lete or Back-
space key on your key board to delete the icon.
4.
Select the ob ject or text you want associated with the sound and
choose “Ac tion Set tings” from the Slide Show menu.
5.
Check the “Play Sound” check box and choose your sound from the
drop down menu. Your sound will be listed with the name you gave it. 
Note that you might have to scroll up or down to find your sound, as it
might be in the list in al phabetical or der or at the top of the list of
sounds.