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PPTools Narrator
PPTools Narrator is an add-in that helps you to produce narrated PowerPoint presentations with high-quality sound.
Instead of using PPT's own sometimes-troublesome Record Narration feature, you use better, more flexible dedicated sound recording software like Audacity to record the narration for your presentation.
Once you've recorded your narration files, Narrator automatically adds them to your presentation, each on the correct slide. It sets the narration to play automatically and sets the slide to advance after the narration ends.
Narrator benefits
You could, of course, do all of this manually, but it would be quite error-prone, and would take dozens of mouse-clicks per slide. Narrator saves you all that trouble and ...
- Narrator makes it simple to use your favorite audio recording software instead of relying on PowerPoint's rather cantankerous Record Narration feature. This lets you control the audio quality and compression level of your audio rather than relying on PowerPoint's default settings, whatever they may be.
- Narrator makes it possible to link your narration to external files if you wish; PowerPoint doesn't offer this option.
- Since Narrator can re-insert your sound files at any time, you can trim them, edit them re-record them or change them in any way you wish. Simply re-run Narrator to add them again.
- If you want to remove all sounds that Narrator has added, put your presentation file in an otherwise empty folder then run Narrator. Narrator removes any previous sounds it added, but since it finds no new sounds to insert, no new sounds are added.
- You can switch from linked to embedded sounds and back at any time. Switch the Link option in the Narrator dialog box on or off, click OK and Narrator makes the change.
- You can change from one sound file format to another at any time (for example, WAV to MP3). Convert the files to the new format, run Narrator, tell it the extension for the new sound format and click OK. Narrator removes the old format files and adds the new ones in their place.
How does it work?
Take a moment to download and read the Narrator Help file (PDF format) to learn more about how it works and how you'll use it to save hours of time. The Narrator Help file is also included in the Narrator download (see below).
PLEASE NOTE
The version of Narrator you can download here is a demonstration version that only adds sounds to a limited number of slides. Eventually it might become a commercial product but for now, it's free. Try the demo and if it works for you, you can use this registration key to convert it to a full, unrestricted version. Click the ABOUT button and enter this information:
Name: FRIEND OF PPTOOLS
Number: 12625804716
Install Narrator
Narrator is compatible with PowerPoint 2010 and later, in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. It's NOT compatible with earlier versions of PowerPoint.
- Download Narrator.zip and save it to any convenient location on your hard drive.
- Extract the Narrator files (Narrator.PPAM and Narrator_HELP.PDF) to any convenient folder. We suggest your Add-ins folder:
- C:\Users\[Your_User_Name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\AddIns
- (Substitute your actual Windows user name for [Your_User_Name])
- Start PowerPoint and choose File | Options | Add-Ins
- Choose Manage: PowerPoint Add-Ins then click Go.
- In the Add-Ins dialog box that appears, click Add.
- If necessary, browse to the folder where you've saved the Narrator files.
- Select Narrator.PPAM and click OK.
- Click OK again to dismiss the Add-Ins dialog box.