How to Add Voiceover Narration on Google Slides

Google Slides is a feature-packed, browser based presentation tool. You might use it to give in-person presentations or share slides from afar. Learn how to do a voiceover on Google Slides to capture your speaking voice adding thoughts to your presentation.

Voiceovers are useful even if you’re presenting live. Perhaps you've got a co-presenter who can’t attend. When you know how to add voice recording to Google Slides, you can add them in to share their portion of the slide deck. It’s a powerful way to make your presentations more accessible and engaging. Let's learn how, together.

Why Add Voiceovers in Google Slides?

Google Slides is a great tool for building presentations. With global teams working together, it’s a perfect way to collaborate. Google Slides exists fully offline. Users don’t have to install special apps and software to view and edit slide decks.

With the ability to build slides in a web browser, Google Slides is flexible and versatile enough for any project. In moments, you can share slides around the world. But what if you’re saving slides to share later? Maybe your audience can’t join in real time. Or you may want them to refer back to your presentation later. That means that you need to know how to do a voiceover on Google Slides. 

A voiceover on Google Slides helps you add audio narration to your presentation. Why do this? It means that you don’t have to be available to present in real time. Instead, you can record your narration and save it right inside of Google Slides. This way, your audience can play back your slide deck on their own schedule.

How does this boost engagement? Consider what audiences will see if you simply email out a copy of your slides. Sure, they can review content visually.

But they’ll miss out on your narrative delivery - the anecdotes, inflections, and details that you share when speaking. With a voiceover, your audience will get the full impact of your slides anywhere, anytime. This is why learning how to do a voiceover on Google Slides will set your presentation apart.

Now, let’s learn how to add voiceover to Google Slides presentations fast! For our tutorial, we’ll work with the beautiful LEONE Google Slides template from Envato Elements. Download it today to follow along.

How to Do a Voiceover on Google Slides Quickly

We’ve explored the benefits of Google Slides voiceovers. Now, it’s time to learn how to record voice on Google Slides. By doing so, you can capture your Google Slides narration to share with an audience. Let’s get started. 

1. Record Audio in MP3 Format 

Google Slides is part of the larger Google Drive universe of productivity apps. Slides itself doesn’t have the capability to record voiceovers and narration built in. But fortunately, it’s still quite easy to do. While you can’t record in Slides, you can easily add and edit audio to play back during your presentation. 

Google Drive itself is a cloud storage platform that lets you upload and work with files of many types. One of Google Drive’s supported file formats is .mp3 audio. MP3 files are extremely common, and they’re easy to record. Many popular audio recording apps record in MP3 format. As you learn how to record voice on Google Slides, you'll want to be sure that you've got a way to record MP3 audio. 

You really have two options here:

1. You can record in MP3 format.


2. 
   Or you can use an app like Apple's Voice Memos, which saves in .m4a format. Then, you can convert the recording to MP3 by using a free platform like CloudConvert. 
   

For this example, we'll use the free app Audacity to record. It lets you save recordings in MP3 format, saving you the step of having to convert audio to a format that Google Drive and Slides support.

Let’s begin by recording our Google Slides audio. Start by launching your favorite audio recorder, like Audacity.

Be sure to work in a quiet environment. You don’t want background noise that'll distract your audience.

Then, launch your presentation in Google Slides. The way that I like to record is to navigate through my full slide deck in real time. I pretend to be speaking to an audience, working through my slides one by one. In the background, my recording is running. 

To replicate this, be sure you’re recording audio. Then, click through your slides. This way, you can preserve the pace and timing of your presentation. Later, you can sync up your audio to match. Remember to use transition phrases.

For example, as you move to a new topic, try to say something like “moving to the next slide” or “moving forward to our next topic.” This keeps your audience in step with the slides you’re speaking about. 

When you’re finished, end your recording and save the MP3 copy of your audio. Now, let’s move on and start learning how to add voice recording to Google Slides decks.

2. Upload Audio to Google Drive

With your voiceover recording saved in MP3 format, you now need to bring it to Google’s online apps. Begin by going to Google Drive’s homepage. There, you’ll see a list of files and folders that you already have saved.

To upload your MP3 audio, launch your file browser on your computer. Navigate to your saved audio file. Click on the title and drag it over the open Google Drive window. Drop it into place by releasing your cursor. Google Drive uploads the recording, saving it for use. 

If you prefer a different process for upload, click New > File Upload in Google Drive. Then, repeat the same step of finding your saved recording and clicking on it to upload.

Just like that, you've recorded audio ready for use in Google Slides! 

3. Insert Audio in Google Slides

With your audio uploaded to Google Drive, it’s time to add it to Slides. To get started, launch your presentation in Google Slides. With your slide deck open, go to the first slide in the deck. You can navigate by using the sidebar menu on the left. 

To add audio to your presentation, find the Insert menu at the top of your Google Slides window. Click on it, and you’ll see a dropdown menu appear with a list of options. From here, select the third option from the top: Audio.

Slides launches the Insert Audio menu. By default, you’ll find yourself on the My Drive tab. This shows thumbnails for all audio files that you've saved in your Google Drive account. The recorded narration uploaded in the prior step will be in the top left corner of the gallery.

To insert your audio, click on your recording’s thumbnail. Then, click on the blue Select button in the lower left corner of the Insert Audio menu. Google Slides adds it to your presentation. It’s that easy!

4. Set Playback Settings

When your audio appears in Google Slides, you’ll notice a new sidebar menu opening on the right side of your screen. It’s the Format Options menu, and it’s the control center for audio in Google Slides.

By default, certain settings are specified. But to ensure that playback happens the way you want, you may need to make some adjustments. Begin by opening the Audio Playback section of the Format Options sidebar.

Your first option is to control how audio starts to play. You've got two options here:

1. 
   On Click. This means that audio plays only when a viewer presses the Play button. 
   


2. 
   Your other choice is Automatically. 
   

Think back to how we recorded audio. Since it’s designed to sync up with the full narrative of the slides, Automatically is the best choice here. This way, you can ensure that your audio plays at the time and pace that you had in mind when you recorded it. To specify this, simply click the Automatically bubble to make it the option in use. 

Second, you need to specify whether audio plays across slides. Keep in mind - in this example, we recorded audio for the full presentation. Thus, you’ll want the audio voiceover to continue playing as viewers move from slide to slide. Click on the Stop on Slide Change box to uncheck it. This way, audio plays no matter where someone is in the slide deck. 

This raises a key point: you can add audio for slides one by one. Here, you would add separate MP3 files to each slide in the deck. For them, you would want to use the Stop on Slide Change option to avoid confusing your audience. This is a useful option if you need audio only on selected slides in the deck. 

5. Preview the Narrated Slides

We’ve just learned how to record voice on Google Slides! But there’s one last step. Before sharing with your global audience, it’s a good idea to preview your recorded audio. This lets you ensure that it plays back the way you've got in mind. Plus, you can check to be sure the sound quality is high and easy to listen to.

To preview your audio, go to View > Slideshow in Google Slides. Be sure the audio starts playing automatically on the first slide, as you’ve specified. Then, click through your slides. Notice that the audio plays across each of them, just as designed! 

Just like that, you learned how to add voice over to Google Slides. It’s an easy and powerful way to engage with your audience from anywhere in the world, on their own schedule.

The Top Source for Stunning Google Slides Templates (With Unlimited Use)

Envato Elements is the top source for the best Google Slides templates. With thousands of options to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect design for you.

The Elements offer is powerful. For a flat monthly fee, you access unlimited downloads of all of these premium Google Slides decks. Plus, Elements includes millions of other assets. You’ll enjoy fonts, music, stock photos, and so much more.

Explore Google Slides Templates

Elements is the best value for creatives in 2023. With expertly built designs, you don’t need to be a skilled designer to enjoy stunning results. It's a major assist as you learn how to record voice on Google Slides.

When you choose a premium design from Envato Elements, you’ll experience:

• 
  Easy-to-use layouts. With pre-built designs, the hard creative work is handled for you.


• 
  Inspirational designs. Placeholders mean you can drop in your own content quickly. Themed designs and layouts help inspire what to place on each slide.


• 
  Powerful graphics and charts. These help you beautifully illustrate data and advanced concepts.

As you can see, you can’t afford to miss out on Envato Elements. Join today and start downloading new templates to work with! 

You Just Learned How to Add Voice Recordings to Google Slides

Now that you know how to add voiceover to Google Slides presentations, you can share insight even while apart. This skill brings a more personal touch to a presentation even when you can't meet in-person.

What are you waiting for? The best time to put a new skill into practice is right away. Grab your microphone and practice how to record voice on Google Slides designs. Your audience will thank you later.