Adding music to your Google Slide presentation can liven it up and grab the audience’s attention. However, unlike PowerPoint, Google Slides does not directly support audio and music files.
This article will show you several workarounds to effectively add background music to your Google Slide presentations.
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Add link to online streaming service
Find your favorite song in online music services such as Grooveshark, Spotify or Soundcloud. If you don’t have access to one of these services, it’s easy to do.
We will be using Spotify. Sign up for a free Spotify account and either download the app or listen directly in your browser.
- Start by opening your Google Slide presentation in a browser. Navigate to the slide you want to add music to.
- Click Insert> Shape> Shapes.
- Click the shape you want to use and draw it on the slide.
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- You can move or resize the shape by dragging it around one of the four corners.
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- Go to the Spotify site from another window or tab and select the music track you want to use. Find the three dots next to the audio file and click on it to copy the song link.
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- Return to the slide and click the added shape. Then click Insert> Link.
- In the Insert Link dialog box that appears, paste the link to your audio file and click Apply.
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- During your presentation, click the sound link shape to play music. It will open in another window. Start playing the audio track. The music will play until it ends or you close the window.
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Be sure to log into the browser version of Spotify before giving your presentation to an audience. Keep in mind that the audio file will open in a new tab and you will need to click on it to start playing the music. Therefore, you must have access to the computer that is playing the slideshow.
Add a YouTube video
Google Slides doesn’t support adding audio files to presentations, but it does allow you to add videos. By adding YouTube videos directly to your presentation, you can use the video player’s playback options to start playing your music. The video will play until you advance to the next slide.
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- Click Insert> Video from the slide you want to add music to.
- A pop-up window with three options will open.
- Search for YouTube videos.
- Add YouTube video url.
- Download video from Google Drive (discussed below)
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- Enter the URL of the video or search for it on YouTube.
- When you find the link for the video you want to use, click the Select button.
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- A video thumbnail field will be added to the slide. Right-click the thumbnail and select Format Options.
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- Open the video playback settings by clicking on the carrot next to it and checking the Autoplay on presentation box.
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- Make the video as small as possible and move it by dragging it to an inconspicuous place on the slide. To close the formatting options sidebar, click the X icon.
- To start playing music on a slide during your presentation, click the arrow on the video thumbnail. When you go to the next slide, the video will stop playing.
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If you want to include a different background audio (from the video) on more slides, follow the same steps above. Select and copy the inserted video to use the same one from different slides.
Insert it on every slide where you want the audio to play. When moving to the next slide, keep in mind that there will be a pause in the music because you have to press the play button to start playing the sound on each slide.
Change the timings of the video file for smoother transitions. Update the start time for each slide in the video playback settings. If you don’t, the video will restart every time you navigate to the slide that contains the video file.
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It is not ideal for playing music throughout your presentation. However, if you want to use music as an accent on a slide or two, this might work.
Use Google Drive
You can add your own audio file to your presentation by first uploading it to Google Drive. Make sure you are using the same Google account.
- Download and search for the audio file in your Google Drive account, but don’t open it. Instead, right-click the file and select Get Share Link.
- If link sharing is disabled, turn on the radio button and copy the link.
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- Go back to your Google Slide presentation and click the slide you want to add music to.
- There are two ways to link to an audio file in Google Drive. The first option is to insert the shape onto the slide and hyperlink to the URL of the audio file.
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Another option is to add text to the slide and hyperlink to the audio file.
- To play audio during your presentation, click the associated text or shape. It will open in another tab. Click Play to start music. It will play until it is finished or until you close it.
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Follow the same steps above to add a video from your Google Drive to your presentation.
Adding music to your Google Slide presentation isn’t as smooth or easy as adding sound to your PowerPoint presentation.
However, Google Slides offers many advantages over PowerPoint, for example:
- The ability to collaborate with others.
- History of changes and the ability to restore previous versions.
- Full integration with Google fonts.
- Google Slides is free to use on the web.
Have you created your presentation using Google Slides? Read the Quick Start Guide to Making Awesome Google Slides to learn how.
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