So, for maximum useability it great to embed multimedia into the presentation. PowerPoint allows the .wav audio format to embedded – great! But the .wav format makes the largest file size – bummer! The good news is, with a basic audio editing application you can dramatically reduce the size of your .wav files.
Here is my sample audio file; a huge 22MB!
I opened the file in Sound Forge Studio, went to Save As, choose .wav as the format and then clicked on the ‘Customize’ button to further modify the settings. As you can see I:
– Reduced the SAMPLE RATE to 22,050 (from 44,100)
– Reduced the BIT DEPTH to 8 (from 16)
– Changed the CHANNELS to mono (from stereo)
Needless to say, this is a lower quality audio track than the original. But most presentations are viewed with computer speakers, have no stereo recording attributes and act as an enhancement to the presentation – no one will notice 🙂
Here is the same audio file saved with the above settings – a mere 2MB!
For comparison, here is what the same file looks like saved as a lower quality .MP3 (64k, 16 bit, stereo), but higher quality than our optimized .wav the .MP3 is only 1MB:
You will need to find the balance between the benefits of larger – embedded audio and smaller linked audio to know which is better for your presentation. Best of luck!
-Troy @ TLC