PowerPoint Narration

General Guidelines

• Try to keep your audio segments less than 30 minutes in length. This is especially important if you plan on converting your presentation to Flash using PowerCONVERTER Pro. PowerCONVERTER Pro cannot convert large PowerPoint files. If your PowerPoint presentation becomes too large for PowerCONVERTER Pro to handle, break it up into several pieces and convert each presentation segment separately.
• Also, consider using Articulate instead to convert your PowerPoint to Flash.
• Turn off all cell phones and try to make sure the phone will not ring during your recording.
• Try to record your audio at nights or on the weekends when there is less likelihood of being interrupted.

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Setup Audio Source

• Start by making sure your computer is set to record from the microphone by going to the Start Menu > Control Panel.

• Click on Sounds and Audio Devices
• Note: some operating systems also allow access to this tool by clicking on the speaker icon in the lower right corner of your desktop

 

• Click on the Audio tab
• Click the Volume button under Sound Recording

• Make sure that Microphone is selected
• Keep this tool open as you'll need it to adjust your recording levels

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Plug-in & turn on Microphone

• Make sure the microphone is on and plugged into the correct plug on your computer.

 

 

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Start PowerPoint Narration

• Open PowerPoint
• Select File > Open...
• Navigate to your saved PowerPoint presentation and click Open.
• Select Slide Show > Record Narration...

 

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Set Audio Quality

• Click Change Quality, and set to 22.05 kHZ, 16 bit, mono.
• Click OK.

 

Note: If you are using a USB microphone, clicking on Set Microphone Level will cause an error window to pop up saying that PowerPoint cannot find the microphone. Please ignore this message. The microphone will work despite the error message.

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Begin Narrating

• Click OK to begin recording narration. Move through the slide show, narrating each slide. 

 

• If you wish to pause while you are recording a slide, right-click the mouse and choose Pause Narration from the pop-up menu. To continue, right-click again and choose Resume Narration.

CAUTION: Give at least a one second pause at the beginning and end of the narration of each slide. Leaving a little silence at the beginning and end of each slide helps to ensure your audio does not get clipped. 

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Slide Show Edits

• Once you are done recording the audio, you will see all of your slides with the narration added. The number on the lower left corner of each slide shows audio length for each slide.
• If you want to change the narration of a particular slide navigate to that slide, then select Slide Show > Record Narration.

 

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Save Presentation

• Select File > Save to save your narrated presentation.

 

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The NEXT STEP... put it on the Web

Audio and the Web
Contact the CTI cti@uidaho.edu for help converting your PowerPoint file into a flash presentation. The resulting file will be as much as 10 times smaller. Also see the Articulate Tutorial.