Play Group in 2007 PPT win 7--Narration

[W. eWatson]

I am now able to proceed with the narration, but it looks like some
critical items are in what's called the Play Group. How do I access it?
I tried Customize Quick Access, but don't think that's the place to be.
It would seem there is some mechanism to put the group on the top bar.
In fact, I just noticed I now longer see Format up there after the
repair I made to the program.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

I am now able to proceed with the narration, but it looks like some
critical items are in what's called the Play Group. How do I access it?
I tried Customize Quick Access, but don't think that's the place to be.
It would seem there is some mechanism to put the group on the top bar.
In fact, I just noticed I now longer see Format up there after the
repair I made to the program.

If you select an inserted sound, you'll see *above* the normal ribbon bar,
another tab or two ... one should be Sound Tools. With that selected the
ribbon will have Play, Sound Options, Arrange and Size groups.

 

[W. eWatson]

If you select an inserted sound, you'll see *above* the normal ribbon bar,
another tab or two ... one should be Sound Tools. With that selected the
ribbon will have Play, Sound Options, Arrange and Size groups.

I see 8 items beginning with Home, Insert, and ending with Acrobat. No
Sound Tools.

 

[W. eWatson]

I see 8 items beginning with Home, Insert, and ending with Acrobat. No
Sound Tools.

Ah, select Insert, then look to the right for the Media Clips. That
works. I get a noisy recording. It helps to put the microphone closer to
my mouth, but I can still hear noise.

It looks like one needs to use this method for each slide, and trigger
the narration by pressing the speaker icon. The Slide Show group seems
another approach to this. I was under the impression that the sound
would auto play as each slide appeared. It looks like this may be the
case for using the Slide Show approach. The two approaches produce the
produce a speaker icon in different places on the slide. Off to some
experimenting.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Ah, select Insert, then look to the right for the Media Clips. That
works. I get a noisy recording. It helps to put the microphone closer to
my mouth, but I can still hear noise.

OK, but that answers a different question than the one you originally asked,
I think. Again, to see the Play group, you must select an already inserted
sound or leave a just-inserted sound selected after having inserted it.

 

[W. eWatson]

OK, but that answers a different question than the one you originally asked,
I think. Again, to see the Play group, you must select an already inserted
sound or leave a just-inserted sound selected after having inserted it.

OK, if I select a speaker icon, then the ribbon (what a concept) shows a
line at the top with Picture and Sound Tools. In the Home...Acrobat line
below it Format and Options are now found. Wow. MS obscuration?

I'll be talking to a friend of mine tonight who is very familiar with
audio, and has a limited amount of experience with PPT. Maybe he can
explain the noise that gets recorded. It gets very subdued when I speak,
but any pause causes the "background" noise to pick up. Cheap
microphone? Possibly.

Thanks again.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

OK, if I select a speaker icon, then the ribbon (what a concept) shows a
line at the top with Picture and Sound Tools.

Click Sound tools. The ribbon changes, play's at the far left.

I'll be talking to a friend of mine tonight who is very familiar with
audio, and has a limited amount of experience with PPT. Maybe he can
explain the noise that gets recorded. It gets very subdued when I speak,
but any pause causes the "background" noise to pick up. Cheap
microphone? Possibly.

Could be; to rule it out, you might want to try recording independently of PPT.

Use Windows Sound Recorder if it's available on your PC or use any decent audio
recording/editing software. Audacity is quite good and free.

If you can get a good recording w/o PPT in the loop, we can both guess where to
point the Finger o' Blame.

If you're recording narration, and especially if you're doing it on a laptop,
try using a USB headset (USB rather than regular 1/8" audio plugs). The USB
ones do their own analog to digital conversion outside the computer. If you're
using a laptop, that gets it away from a lot of electrical noise. The quality
difference can be amazing.

 

[W. eWatson]

Click Sound tools. The ribbon changes, play's at the far left.


Could be; to rule it out, you might want to try recording independently of PPT.

Use Windows Sound Recorder if it's available on your PC or use any decent audio
recording/editing software. Audacity is quite good and free.

If you can get a good recording w/o PPT in the loop, we can both guess where to
point the Finger o' Blame.

If you're recording narration, and especially if you're doing it on a laptop,
try using a USB headset (USB rather than regular 1/8" audio plugs). The USB
ones do their own analog to digital conversion outside the computer. If you're
using a laptop, that gets it away from a lot of electrical noise. The quality
difference can be amazing.

I took a trip of a few days and am back. I discovered I had a USB
Logitec mike so used it with Audacity. Recording my voice works fine. As
it turns out, after a messing with the PPT level, things got better with
the old mike; however, once again PPT once again is failing whenever I
try to use Insert-> Recording. The previous solution MS gave me does not
work. However, that was when I was getting failures in Slide Show
narration. I re-submitted an e-mail for help.

I guess I've made some progress, but will have to wait to see if PPT can
be better behaved.