PowerPoint presentations combine a lot of media into slideshows. Most PowerPoint users will probably add at least a little video and audio to make the presentations more interesting. But PowerPoint doesn’t support every media format.
Hence if PowerPoint can’t play video or audio in a presentation, that’s probably due to not having the required codecs or incompatible media formats for them.
How To Fix Unable to play audio or video in PowerPoint
Method 1. Set the Media Compatibility
First of all, you’re going to try is setting the proper media compatibility settings in PowerPoint. This method will set everything in place, allowing you to optimize media compatibility in PowerPoint. Here are the steps:
1. Open PowerPoint .
2. Navigate to the File menu and select Info.
3. PowerPoint will detect if your media is incompatible with the program, and the Optimize Media Compatibility option will occur. Thus, pick that option, and PowerPoint will optimize the embed media.
3. Let the wizard scan the embed media. If the immediate solution is available, the wizard will resolve the issue automatically.
If the Optimize Media Compatibility option can’t resolve the issue, it’ll at least tell you the culprit.
Method 2. Check the codecs
If you don’t have the right multimedia codecs installed on your computer, you can’t play audio or video in PowerPoint.
Hence, check your codecs, if you have any installed already, Ensure to update them to the latest versions. If not, install them.
If you do not know which codec pack to choose, check out my list of the best video and audio codecs for Windows 10.
Method 3. Make sure the video/audio format is supported
If you can’t play audio or video in your PowerPoint presentation, there’s a huge chance you’re using an unsupported media format.
When it comes to video, PowerPoint 2010 mainly uses wmv files, while the 2016 version adds up .mp4 files encoded with H.264 video and AAC audio. Also, Flash videos might not work in the newer versions of PowerPoint 2013 or 2016.
What video format works on PowerPoint? The recommended format is a .mp4 file with H.264 video and AAC audio. However, there’s support for the following also: .avi, .wmv, .mpeg, .asf or .swf.
As for audios, Microsoft recommends WAV files for PowerPoint 2010. If you’re using an MP3 file in your presentation, you may face some problems. In addition, PowerPoint 2016 also supports .m4a files encoded with AAC audio.
What audio format does PowerPoint use? PowerPoint 2013/2016 can use the following audio formats: .mp3., .wma, .wav, .midi, .aiff, .au, .mp4. The recommended format is an .m4a file encoded with AAC audio.
Method 4. Convert your video and audio file
As we said, even though PowerPoint may support the current format of your audio and video, we would recommend you convert it to .wma/.wmv.
Luckily, there are a lot of tools that can convert your media in no time.
You may also like: How to Convert MP3 to WMA in Windows 10/8/7
Method 5. Set the link value
PowerPoint has a little thing called limited link value. If your audio/video file exceeds the limit, you won’t be able to embed it. In order to fix this problem, simply increase the limit. Here are the steps:
1. Navigate to Tools > Options.
2. Under the General tab, set the value for Links Sounds With File Size Greater Than to 500000 KB.
3. Click OK to save the changes.