Voice over PowerPoint

Reliablecounter Team

PowerPoint presentations are the most widely used format by businesses and teachers to share their plans, ideas and educational content with as high as 95% market share. I have created hundreds of PowerPoint presentations in the past, and in this article, I’m going to share the different ways you can add narrations or voice overs to a PowerPoint presentation.

Before we begin, here are some quick facts you should know about PowerPoint

  • 500 Mn+ users worldwide
  • 30 Mn+ presentations created every day
  • 6 Mn+ teachers use it to teach and share classroom content

Traditionally, it’s considered a best practice to create PowerPoint presentation with limited text and lots of good visual imagery, and talk through your key points while you speak along during the presentation.

However, with the world increasingly moving digital, the presenter cannot always be physically present to share their thoughts with the audience. This is where voice over PowerPoint and narrated presentations really come in handy to communicate effectively with your audience.

Bonus Tip: These can also be exported as videos and shared on the web or YouTube, so they can be viewed by audiences who do not have Microsoft PowerPoint installed on their machine. This can significantly increase the reach of your content.

 

How to do a voice over on PowerPoint

Adding  a voice over narration to PowerPoint can be achieved in a few different ways, each with its own pros and cons. I have tried many of these options suited to different kinds of use-cases and summarised my findings for each approach in this article.

Here I am discussing 3 different voice over methods:

  1. Creating professional quality voice overs using AI enabled voice over
  2. Recording home quality narrations in PowerPoint along with slideshow timing
  3. Recording your video using a video-conferencing tool or screen recorder

If you need any professional voice to be doing the narration, the Murf AI Voice Studio is clearly the simplest and fastest way to go. No recording, no post-processing required. You would find it especially convenient if you preview the recorded presentation and decide to change something in the script after listening. Edits to the script can be done in seconds, literally. Also, adding background music makes your presentation sound much more professional.

 

How to write a good voice over script

No matter which of the above you go for, a good script is crucial to creating a high quality voice over presentation. A narration script requires you to write like you would talk to a live audience, and maintain constant connect with them.

Here are top 5 tips to write the perfect voice over:

  1. Make every word count
    1. A good rule of thumb is to keep the script between 70-120 words per slide. This would typically take 30-60 seconds to narrate.
  2. Avoid using the same text that’s already written in the slide
    1. Do not read out what’s already there in the slide, use the voice over to highlight the key takeaways, provide an explanation or give examples.
  3. Keep a consistent tonality
    1. In order to build a connect with your audience, it is important to think about the level of formality and tone and keep it consistent throughout your script.
  4. Get to the point fast
    1. Say the most important things first and then follow it up with other observations or ideas.
  5. Check for grammar and punctuations
    1. Get your script proof-read by someone who can check on your grammar or just do it yourself.

Best practices for recording voice overs

If you want to record your own narrations for your presentation, here are some of the do’s and don’ts to get your started:

Dos

  • Practice your script a couple of times before you start recording
  • Avoid noisy places and choose a quiet room to record.
  • Choose a good microphone which can deliver good audio quality
  • Keep the mic close to your mouth (5 inches for best clarity)
  • Test your mic and your software before you start recording
  • Take pauses in between slides to allow for slide changeovers

Don’ts

  • Do not record the whole narration in one shot. Break it up into 5-10 slides and record each section separately to simplify any edits.
  • Do not carry over the same sentence to the next slide because PowerPoint would need time to change over to the next slide.
  • Try not to change the recording levels too much after you have recorded. This can make your audio noisy or inaudible.

Benefits of voice-over on PowerPoint

 

  • Perfect timing every time it’s presented
  • Remember when you’re allotted 30 mins and just need another 5 mins to say that important thing you forgot to mention ? That’s why timing is important.
  • One of the advantages of having a pre-recorded voice over is the fact that you can always edit your script to spend time on the important parts of the script and cut out on some others.

 

  • Clear communication and delivery
  • Wonder if you could be your best every time you present ? Voice overs make that possible.
  • While presenting, it’s common to go off topic and miss some of the key points we want to communicate. This gets solved with VO PPTs.

 

  • Attention span of your audience
  • People respond to connect, and this is where voice overs help you retain that connection with your audience even though you are not physically present.
  • However, be sure to make the first 5 mins super interesting for the audience, as it is known to have a huge impact on engagement.

Conclusion

Adding a narration or voice over to a PowerPoint presentation may seem daunting at first, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right set of choices about tools and the advanced artificial intelligence enabled voice over technology, it has now become possible to do this in a matter of few minutes.