How to Pause Audio on a PowerPoint

As a business owner, there may be times when you want to interrupt your PowerPoint presentation to explain a point in greater detail. During these times, you can pause the audio so that the audio doesn't continue to run when you've stopped your presentation. You can set your presentation to begin playing automatically when the slide appears. You can just as easily pause the audio when you need to. When the audio plays, the slide displays a pause button that you can use to halt the playback.

Open a new or existing PowerPoint presentation file. Select the slide that has the audio file.

Click the "Insert" tab, then the "Audio" button. In the resulting dialog box, navigate to the audio file you want to add, then double-click it.

Click the "Slide Show" button to begin the presentation. Click the left mouse button or press the right arrow key to navigate to the slide with the audio file.

Move the mouse pointer over image of the audio file. A navigation menu and progress bar for the audio file appears.

Click the "Play" button to begin playing the audio file. This button changes to a "Pause" button. Click this button to pause the audio and click it again to resume playing.

Alternatively, press "Alt-P" to pause the audio and press "Alt-P" again to resume.