How to insert a video into PowerPoint

PowerPoint is one of the main tools in the Microsoft Office suite and one of the most popular programs for preparing and showing presentations. Every year developers update the editor and add new features, including 3D graphics, motion effects, complex animations and even neural network algorithms.

How to add videos to PowerPoint?

By using videos in your PowerPoint presentations you can emphasize their dynamism and unique style. Video files in slideshows improve the quality of data assimilation and increase audience engagement. Interactive stories, screencasts with guides, segments from educational lectures or movies, and much more are suitable for presentations. And when it comes to business seminars, such slideshows can be used to beautifully demonstrate your product.

The function of adding and playing video files is available in all versions of Microsoft Office PowerPoint. Even inside the program you can control brightness, color and contrast, adjust repeats or trim files. The number of available functions depends on the version. Accordingly, the newer it is, the more cool tools will appear for working with video files.

Read also: How to make a presentation with triggers

Method 1. Paste

This is the most classic method available in all versions and builds of PowerPoint.

1. First, you need to open the Insert tab in the top navigation bar.
   2. On the right side, you should look for the video icon and click on it.3. The system will prompt you to choose one of the insertion methods. For example, you can specify “Stock Videos” or “Videos from the Internet”. In our case, click on “Video from file”.4. Next, you should select a file from a folder on your computer and click on “Insert”.

Method 2. Content Area

The following method will be the best solution for those cases when there is no information on the slide, because a ready-made slide layout will be used for uploading.

1. Step one. Open PowerPoint and create a blank slide.
   2. Step two. Select the “Layout” section and point to one of the layouts where icons are present. For example, it could be “Title and Content”.3. step three. We specify the video icon.4. Fourth step. Search for the file on your device and click on “Insert”.

Method 3. Moving

Next, let’s look at the easiest and fastest way to add a video to a PowerPoint presentation, namely dragging and dropping a video file from a folder. If your file is on your device and you know exactly where it lies, this will be the most convenient and fastest option.

1. Step one. Select the windowed mode of PowerPoint and find the folder with the clip, placing it on top of the working window of the program.
   2. Second step. Move the video file with the mouse to a specific slide.

Features of video customization in PowerPoint

Having figured out how to load video clips into a slide show, you can move on to the next step – customizing the playback. For this purpose, two tabs are used:

1. Playback.
   2. Video Format.

The Playback tab is used to customize playback, subtitles or trimming of the file.

Of the available settings:

1. Selecting the video layout for switching between fragments using hotkeys.
   2. Trimming the video file, customizing startup options (automatic or on-click), audio and playback fine-tuning.
   3. Adding subtitles.

The Video Format window is for adding style adjustments.

Here you can do the following:

1. Change the brightness and color of the video or make a splash screen from the frame.
   2. Change the style of the video, specify the shape, shadows and stroke.
   3. Customize the placement of the video on the slide, group and expand objects, crop and adjust the width and height.

Read also: How to work with graphs and charts in PowerPoint

What video formats does PowerPoint work with?

To date, the graphic editor and at the same time a program for PowerPoint slideshows works with a variety of video formats. They may differ, depending on the features of the OS and a particular version of the software. The most common formats are the following:

• MP4.
• MPG, MPEG.
• AVI, ASF.
• SWF.
• AIFF.
• AU and others.

If the source material is converted in another format, you can use online services or special conversion tools. If you have additional questions, you can contact PowerPoint support for help or read the help section.

What are some mistakes when adding video to PowerPoint?

Among the most common errors that users encounter when adding video files to PowerPoint are the following: “The program cannot insert a video from the selected file”. Let’s understand what this is due to and how to act in such a situation to eliminate errors.
Among the main causes of errors when adding videos are the following:

1. The video file has been deleted, moved, or is unavailable.
   2. The file has been modified, corrupted, renamed.
   3. The video format is not supported by the software.
   4. There is an error with the program.
   5. The video file is too large beyond the size allowed for insertion.
   6. PowerPoint does not have plug-ins for video insertion installed.

To troubleshoot problems, you should check such settings beforehand:

1. There are no errors in spelling the name and specifying the correct path of the video file. You can move the video to the Desktop to easily insert it into the project.
   2. Are the playback options for the video correctly specified. You can play the file by right-clicking on it and check if there are any playback problems.
   3. File size and resolution. Do not add too heavy files or high resolution clips to your presentation. This will not only make it harder to add the clip, but will also make it difficult to convert in slide show mode. Numerous free tools can be used to compress videos to the desired parameters.

Often, problems with inserting video into PowerPoint are explained by version errors. Therefore, check which build of the program you are using and update it if possible.