Add Audio Files to Your Google Slides

A new feature in Google Slides is the ability to add an audio file. No more hacking inserting YouTube videos to get an audio only recording on your Google Slides presentation. When teachers can talk less, students can do more. Creating interactive Google Slides presentations where students can click on an icon to listen to instructions or an oral prompt can enhance the activity.

Insert Menu

To insert audio to a slide… use the Insert menu 🙂 This will allow you to browse your Google Drive for an audio file. If your file is not in Google Drive, simply drag into Google Drive before inserting into Slides.

Hovering over the audio icon on the slide will reveal the playback tools.

Format Options

When single clicking on the audio icon, look up in the toolbar for the “Format options…”

This will open a side panel to choose audio playback options.

The default is for the user to need to click on the icon to hear the audio. Change this to “Automatically” for the user to hear the audio upon slide change.

Audio for the Entire Presentation

By default the audio file is only for the slide it is inserted on. In the Format options, unclick “Stop on slide change” and the audio will continue until the file has finished regardless of slide changes.

Change the Icon

The default icon is grey clipart of an audio file.

You can change this by single clicking on the icon and in the toolbar choosing “Replace image.” This will allow you to browse for an image file and swap out the clipart for your own picture.