Unable to Add Music to Slideshow

[gracerod]

I am very new to this, and I'm failing miserably during my first attempt at creating a slideshow. (Also, I seem to be failing at posting a message. I thought I did this yesterday, but I don't seem to be able to find it.) My slideshow previews and runs just fine until I try to add a music file. I'm using wma files that I recorded to my PC with the Windows Media Player. I found an old post and followed the instructions. When I click Preview after adding the music, the status line displays "Calculation of length of music files," and then it quits responding. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[JRR]

Gracerod:

Welcome to PTE !

I know someone will come along and correct me if I am wrong, but I believe PTE only uses mp3 and OGG (?) files. Although I saw a posting the other day that someone manged to use a wav file (it did not work well as WAV files are too big)

I have never tried a WMA file as I don't use that file type, so I might be biased.

Most (like almost all) people use mp3

[Guest guru]

I too welcome you, Gracerod!

PTE supports following sound formats: .WAV, .MP3, .WMA, .MID, .KAR, .RMI. But in many cases WMA files cause issues and problems (not only in PTE!...). You can convert your wma files to mp3 or ogg by many softwares (even free, like dBPowerAmp Audio Converter, an excellent universal converter and CD ripper).

[gracerod]

Thanks to both Jim and Guido . . . I have tried using an mp3 file, and it did work. It's good to know that there is a free way to convert files to mp3! This is a new area for me. I do have a friend who is using his .wma files without problems, so it is frustrating that I cannot get it to work. But I will be happy if I am successful in converting my files to mp3. Incidentally, the mp3 files that I found on the web are much larger than the wma files that I was using.

Again, many thanks! I am sure that I will have many more questions as I explore this product. It is comforting to know that I received answers so quickly.

[sdipjmc]

I have been able to convert my music files to mp3 but they don't show up as a list of options when I want to add music to my presentations. I tried moving the wav files from my folder - still didn't work. Any suggestions?

[Guest guru]

they don't show up as a list of options ... I tried moving the wav files from my folder

Forgive me sdipjmc, I don't understand which options you mean. And moving the .wav files from which folder?

[alrobin]

sdipjmc,

Do your mp3 files have the extension ".mp3"? If you are still having trouble seeing them in the "Add Music" browse menu, double-check that they are there (using Windows Explorer or My Computer), and if they are where they should be, try rebooting your pc. The presence of the ".wav" files should not have any bearing on the problem.

[Igor]

It's a so often problem!

In the next option we plan to add option which will detect *protected* WMA files and PTE will not add such files, showing warning with recommendation about converting into MP3.