Let's say I want to add music from a CD.

Great idea. Music really jazzes up a presentation. Maybe you want to add music from my band, the Swingin' Sultans of Software?

Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the Smashing Pumpkins. I want to do a presentation on the history of Halloween. You know, pumpkins, Halloween.

Not to mention their lead singer, Billy Corgan, he can look pretty ghoulish... Heh heh.

Adding music from CDs If you have a CD ROM drive installed in your computer, you can add CD music tracks to your PowerPoint presentations. However, you can only add the music tracks to slides. The track will not attach to objects, animations, or transitions. Here's how you add a CD music track to your slide. 1. In Slide View, display the slide you want to add the music track to. 2. Click the Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, and then click Play CD Audio Track. The Insert CD Audio dialog box will appear. 3. Under Clip Selection, enter the music track number in the Start and End Track boxes provided. For example, to add the second track of the CD, type 2 in the Start Track box and in the End Track box. If you want to play just the first 10 seconds of the track, type 10 seconds in the End Track At box. 4. Then click OK. A CD icon appears in the middle of your slide. You can resize this icon or move it to other parts of the slide. 5. To play the CD track, double-click the CD icon. But make sure the CD is in the drive. Otherwise, the music won't play. You can use the Windows Media Player to determine the start and end times of a portion of music on a CD. To open the Windows Media Player in Windows 98, go to your Windows desktop and click the Start button. Point to Programs, point to Accessories, then Entertainment, and click Windows Media Player.

If I'm giving a slide presentation, it seems really awkward to have to click on a CD icon. Is there a way to make it automatic?

What are computers for? Automatic is my middle name.

Power Automatic Point. Odd name.

It's a figure of speech. My middle name is actually Bartholomew.

Making music play automatically By default, effects such audio files, are preset to start with a mouse click. The following steps show you how to make it play automatically and add an animation effect to your CD icon. Note: It's not necessary to add an animation effect to make the CD music play automatically, but it certainly adds visual interest. Especially when the CD icon "makes an entrance" before it starts playing. 1. In Slide View, click the CD icon to select it. 2. Click the Slide Show menu, then click Custom Animation. The Custom Animation task pane will appear. The CD icon is automatically listed - labeled as Media # (Media 4, e.g.) - in the pane along with any other effects on the same slide. 3. You can change how it starts by using the Start function listed in the Modify section of the Custom Animation task pane. Click on the arrow and choose With Previous from the drop-down list. Now the audio will play automatically. 4. To add an effect to the audio, select it, then click on the Change button. Pick an animation effect from the drop-down list that appears. For example, Crawl In. Click OK to apply the effect. You can click Play to see how it will work. You can also change the speed and direction of the effect.