How to listen to an embedded audio in a .pptx file?

A professor sent us a .pptx file with an embedded audio file in each slide, which would supposedly execute with the presentation. When opened with Impress, each slide has a single media icon in the lower left corner which, when clicked on, does nothing. Starting a presentation doesn’t execute the audio file either, neither the animations present on the slides.

I then asked a friend to open in his machine with PowerPoint, the audio file was executable there.

Is there any way that I can open the audio file in Impress?

I have installed the LibreOffice Version 6.4.0.3 (x64) on a Windows 10 machine.

I have the exact same problem. The pptx files are created like this: Record a slide show with narration and slide timings - Office Support

I use Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon (Version 4.6.6). My libre office version is: 6.4.6.2
I don’t know which PowerPoint version was used. Since my fellow students make the presentations.

Concerning the other answer which was given in this thread: VLC Media Player is installed on my computer. It still doesn’t work.

  • Try saving your file in ODP format and try again. (1)

  • If it doesn’t work, ask your professor if he can save it in ODP format and send it to you. (1)

Otherwise here the Media support.

(1) Basically:

Always create and save your files in LibreOffice and save them in ODF format (ODT, ODS, etc.).
Always keep these files as their source. If you need other formats for distribution to partners, you can open an ODF file and save and distribute another format with ″ Save as… ″.

This way, you always have working files available in your system environment.

See:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/General/118

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Please report the behavior as a bug in Bugzilla.

Please announce the link from the bug here.

To do this, edit your initial question. Thank you.

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I wish you success!

This solution was performed for LibreOffice on Windows 10, but should also work with OpenOffice.

The issue of why there is no sound is due to LibreOffice’s reliance on the Operating System to play multimedia files. This is due to LibreOffice being multi-platform and there is currently no decent cross-platform multimedia framework that works with all codec’s (coder - decoder) ‘out of the box’.

The PowerPoint .pptx file has an embedded .m4a (MPEG-4) audio file (that’s what I found with the particular .pptx file I was trying to view/hear). Thus, Windows must have the codecs installed to play the .m4a file. Windows ‘out of the box’ has limited ability to play media files and thus, they must be added.

The solution: install K-Lite Codec Pack - - go to: codecguide.com and download and install either the ‘Basic’ or ‘Standard’ package. This will add a number of codecs that will allow your Window’s box to play almost any multi-media file you encounter. You will be downloading a single .exe file, then execute (run) the .exe accepting all the defaults. Once installed, I still did not have sound until I rebooted Windows.

Note: K-Lite is freeware. There is no cost to use it. However, it’s not open source.

2 Likes

Helped me :slight_smile: With Windows 10 and VLC installed, updating to LibreOffice 7.0.4.2 did not help, but installing the K-Lite Codec Pack did. Thank you!

1 Like

thanks for your solution. I search a lot but I’m not found something clear like this.
I install LibreOffice 7.2.1.2 instead of Microsoft Office. I like Open Source and free applications and packages and I support it if I can.
Anyway! thank you

Thank You!! This promptly solved my problem!