Stopping an audio clip that plays over multiple slides on buttonclick

[Leslie Gerhat]

I am creating a presentation using PowerPoint 2003 on a Windows XP Pro
computer. This presentation is meant to be navigated by a user, and it
consists of a main menu that links to four submenus that link to five
³mini-presentations² in each subsection. The mini-presentations are groups
of two to seven slides that have a single common narration audio clip in MP3
format, which plays through the mini-presentation by utilizing the ³Stop
Playing> After XX slides² command in the Custom Animation. The audio clip
ends when the mini-presentation ends, and when it ends, the slideshow
returns to the subsection menu.

Another way to return to the subsection menu before the mini-presentation is
completed is to click on buttons marked ³Main Menu² and ³<Name of
Subsection>² buttons at the bottom of every slide. Here is where the problem
lies. When you click one of these buttons, the narration track from the
mini-presentation continues to play until you have visited the number of
slides specified in Custom Animation. I need the currently playing audio
track to stop when one of these buttons is clicked, but I¹ve tried countless
solutions, and none of them work. It seems like a very easy problem to fix,
but I can¹t seem to find a way to do this.

I believe that the main problem lies in the fact that I am trying to stop an
audio track that is not technically on the slide that I am trying to stop it
on. Another problem is that I am trying to make a button do two things at
once.

I¹m thinking that a little bit of coding in Visual Basic for Applications
will solve my problem, but unfortunately I don¹t have enough programming
experience to put together the code myself. If someone could put something
together for me that I could just plop in, I would be grateful.

If anyone would like a sample piece of my presentation to tinker with to try
to come up with a solution, just email me at (e-mail address removed)12.pa.us for a
copy. Thank you so much in advance.

 

[Leslie.Gerhat]

Sorry, my email address if you would like a copy of the presentation is
lgerhat()@jtasd.k12.pa.us (delete the parentheses) Thanks.

 

[Austin Myers]

Actually, with 2003 a solution is provided for just such a need. Right
click on your media Icon and select custom aninmations. Now select Add
Effect. At the bottom of the list you will see "Sound Actions". Select
"Stop" and once the action has been added to the animation pane, right click
it select Timing, and select the object you want to use as a trigger to stop
the sound playback.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MPV Team

 

[Leslie.Gerhat]

Okay, Austin, I tried that and it didn't work. My problem with this
solution is that the audio clip starts on a slide, and then the sound
continues playing over multiple slides. Once you get to the second
slide, the media icon is no longer there, so I cannot stop the media
clip. I hope that makes sense - it's hard to explain when you
can't see it. I tried to insert the media clip on all of the slides,
but without playing it - just with the stop action and the triggers
to stop on the click of the media buttons, but I think it doesn't
connect one instance of the media clip with another, so it doesn't
stop it. If there is another solution that you can come up with, I
would appreciate it very much, because I've been tinkering with this
for days and I can't come up with a solution, and I definitely need a
solution. Thank you so much for your reply!

 

[Austin Myers]

Hmmm, you are correct of course. I should have read your post better.
There are a couple of ways you could go about it. A VBA macro would
certainly do it, but that is a bit messy as you need to take control of the
media player directly. A simpler approach would be to "fool" PowerPoint.

Let's say you have a mini presentation with four slides and you want the
music to play during all four. As you have seen that is easy enough using
animation settings but, if you cut it short (show less than four slides) it
creates a problem in that it keeps playing when you return to your main
presentation. Am I reading you right?

If so, lets give PPT what it wants, 4 slide transitions. In your main
presentation, add 4 slides that are copies (with no animations) of the slide
you are returning to, BEFORE the actual slide and then point our return
button to those slides. Set each of the slides to do an automatic
transition with a time of zero seconds.

The end result is that there are 4 slide transitions to satisfy the number
count you set up for the sound playback, and the transitions will happen so
fast no one will ever see it.


You could even place the four "faux" slides at the end of your mini
presentation if doing it in the main presentation is undesirable.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team