Insert Movies

In “PowerPoint”, we can “Add movies” with the “.avi”, “.mov”, “.qt”, “.mpg” or “.mpeg” extensions.
We can make videos with our digital camcorder, save with one of the extensions listed above, and insert them into “PowerPoint”.
We can also “Import videos” into “PowerPoint” from “PowerPoint” “Clip art”, or from a folder on our computer.
When we insert a movie, it is important to know that the movie is linked to your “PowerPoint” file, ie when we move or copy the “Presentation” to another computer, we must also move or copy the movie to this computer.
It is better to embed the movie into the “PowerPoint” “Presentation”.
Embedding means that the movie or the sound is copied into the “presentation”.

In order to insert videos into the “Presentation”, we click on “Insert” (“Insert“) – “Movies and Sound” (Movies and Sound) in the menu bar.
In the first example we choose “Movie from Clip Organizer”(“Movie from Clip Organizer“) to insert a movie from the “PowerPoint” gallery.
In the “Task panel” double-click the file we want to insert.

When we import the video, “PowerPoint” will ask us whether we want to play the movie automatically when we show this “Slide”.
Answer yes or no.
Once we import the movie, we can move it and resize it.

For the second example, we add a movie from a folder on our computer.
We click on “Insert” (“Insert“) – “Movies and Sound” (“Movies and Sound“) in the menu bar and opt for “Movie from File” (“Movie from File“).
We double-click the folder where the movie is located.
We select the video and click OK.

Insert Sound

Inseritng “Sound” in “PowerPoint” is exactly the same as a movie, only difference is that we choose “Sound from Clip Organizer” or “Sound from File”.
In “PowerPoint” 2000, 2003 and XP, we use the “.WAV” sound.

To Embed or not …

We have seen above that we can link sounds and movies into “PowerPoint” or insert then into “PowerPoint”.
When we choose the first, we must ensure that the sound or movie files still remain in the “Presentation”.

The second choice (“Embedded“) will increase the size of your “Presentation” by a whole lot, I mean in kb or MB, but Powerpoint can determine this.
“PowerPoint” has an automatic setting, depending on the size of the file, it decides whether it establishes a link to the file, or inserts the file into the “presentation”.
But we can also do the above settings manually.
Click “Tools” (“Tools“) – “Options” (“Options“) in the menu bar.
Choose the “General” tab (“General“).

All you have to do is check the “Link sounds with file size greater than” (“Link sounds with file size greater than“) and increase or decrease the size.
Please be aware when you allow files upto 40 MB and you run a sound or movie of 38500kb, your performance will also increase with 38500kb.

Flash movies

We can also insert “Flash movies” into “PowerPoint”, both as linked and “Embedded”.
Open the “Control Toolbox” (“Control Toolbox“) and click the “More Controls” (“More Controls“).

To open this menu, click “View” (“View“), select “Toolbars” (“Toolbars“) – “Control Toolbox” (“Control Toolbox“) in the menu bar.
From the list that opens, we choose “Shockwave Flash Object”.

Then click and drag with our mouse in our “Slides”.
This determines the area in which our “Flash movie” will play.
A white rectangle with a black cross.
We right-click on it and choose “Properties” (“Properties“).
In the Movie “Properties” window, we enter the name of our “Flash movie”.
If you want to import the “Flash movie”, select “True” in the “EmbedMovie”.

If you do not want to import the “Flash movie”, but only give it as a link, we give “False” in the “EmbedMovie” box.
But please note that your “Flash movie” and “PowerPoint” “Presentation” should be in the same folder.
Result:

Recording Sound (2000, XP and 2003)

To record sound in “PowerPoint”, we naturally should have a microphone.
We choose “Insert” – “Movies and Sound” – “Record Sound” in the menu bar.
This opens the “Record Sound” dialog box where we enter a file name.
Then we click the red button to start recording.
When we are ready we click the blue button.
When we click OK, “PowerPoint” will record audio into the current “Slide”.

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