Adding Audio to Slides in Keynote on the Mac

0:02
In this video, we’re going to look at how we can add audio to our slides in Keynote on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. So I’m in my presentation here. And let’s say I wanted to add some audio to my presentation, we have a couple of different ways to do that. And this video, I’m going to show you how you can add them as individual slides or to individual slides. But you can also add them as a soundtrack. I have another lesson on that. When we add them to individual slides, what it will do is it’ll play when you are presenting that slide. And then when you go to the next slide, it will stop playing. So it is applied only to that slide.

0:44
We do have a few options when we apply it to a slide as well. So how do we do that? Well, audio is just another object. So when I go up to my toolbar, you’re going to see I have all of these different objects here. We go over to media. And then we select music, we have a new window that opens up. And I can select from different music. This is the music that is in my music app here. To add this I can either drag and drop. So I can just drag this over to my slide, you can see I have a green plus there. Or what I can do is just double click on it.

1:19
When I double click on it, it does add it to the center of the slide. This is usually what I will do, I’m going to move this out of the way here, and you’re going to see that it added it to the center of the slide, it really doesn’t matter where it adds it because when you give your presentation, you will now see this icon here. I’m going to close this window, we can also use drag and drop from a folder. So if I wanted to add music from a folder, maybe it’s not in my music app, all I have to do is just go to that folder. So I’m going to go to my Finder here, I do have some music here. And let’s say I wanted to add this music here, all I have to do is just drag it, you’re going to see again, I have the green plus. And when I let go, it added that music. I’m going to delete this one here. And we’re just going to focus on this one.

2:10
So if I want to sample this, all I have to do is just click on it. And we can hear it, we do have options with this. To view all of the options, what we do is we go up to Format in our toolbar, and then we go over to audio, you’re going to see I can replace the music. I have various controls here. So I can play it rewind or fast forward. And then I also have the volume, how loud do we want it to be, if it’s going to be background audio, maybe you want to turn this down a little bit, I’m going to leave it up high, so you can hear it just a little bit. I can also edit the audio, which means that I can trim it, if it’s a little bit long, all I have to do is just trim the front and the back here. And now it’s going to be shorter. I’m going to leave it a little bit longer here.

3:03
And then down here we have our repeat options as well as when we want it to start. So when it’s on a slide, what do we want it to do when it hits the end of that song. Right now, it’s just going to stop but I could have it loop. And then we also have When do we want it to start? Do we want it to start on click, which means that when I tap the spacebar, that’s when the audio will start. Or if I deselect this, it’ll start automatically, I’m going to go with on click. And then we can also play audio across slides. Now this doesn’t mean that it’s going to play across all the different slides. That’s what soundtrack is for. Again, I’ll have that and another lesson. What this will do is this will fade out when you go to the next slide.

3:50
So it’s going to play across the next slide and then stop. If you turn this off, it’s just going to stop abruptly. So I’m going to leave it as play across slides. Let’s see what this looks like or how this works. I have everything all set up, we can see that we have my audio in the slide. This will disappear when I present my slideshow. So I’m going to click on play here. We have our slide, the music is not playing. Now when I tap the spacebar because I have it separate on click, we’re going to hear the audio. Now I’m going to tap the spacebar again. And we can hear it fading away. And now it’s at the next slide. So it only plays during that slide, but it does play across the transition. Now let’s take another look at the summon hit escape. We’re going back to the first slide here where the audio is and I’m going to select it. And now we’re going to turn this off where it doesn’t play across the slides. You’re going to hear the difference here. We’re going to leave everything else the same. So I click on play.

4:58
It doesn’t do anything I tap the spacebar, we have our music. And now when I tap the spacebar again, take a listen. It stops abruptly. So that’s how we add audio to individual slides. When we add audio to individual slides, it doesn’t play across multiple slides, it only plays on that single slide. We can set when we want that audio to play when the slide hits the presentation or on click when we tap the spacebar. We can also set if we want it to fade out when it goes to the next slide or if we just want it to stop abruptly. And then we also have some trimming options. This is all done under Format and the toolbar. It doesn’t really matter where you place the audio in the slideshow because that icon will disappear when you present your slideshow. So usually what I will do is leave it in the middle. So that’s how we add audio to individual slides in Keynote on the Mac.