Embedding Audio Files In Documents

[Roger Hare]

I'm preparing a set of notes for use with my 'tina, with scores and tablature to carry around

with me when I travel.

 

I'm also 'collecting' .mid files, converting them to .mp3 format using the MuseScore program

and the concertina sound font described here recently (they sound pretty good).

 

I'd love to embed these sound files into the notes, but when I try and follow the (fairly simple!)

instructions in the Open Office documentation, all I get is a large icon, placed in the text at a

position other than the one I intended, and no embedded sound file.

 

Anyone have any idea how to do this, or what I might be doing wrong?

 

I'm going to try this using Word later today, but I'm a bit puzzled as to why this apparently

simple procedure don't work. As far as I can see, it should be possible to do this It's not a

case of RTFM, I should say, but maybe I'm failing to properly understand what I'm reading.

 

Thanks.

 

Roger

[alex_holden]

I just tried it and it seemed to work for me, though the interface is pretty clunky. You can make the media icon smaller using the little green handles and then drag it to where you want it. To play the clip, you click on the icon to select it, then press the play button that appears near the bottom left of the editor window. It looks like exporting to PDF or XHTML doesn't work, you can only play the media from within OpenOffice Writer.

[Roger Hare]

It looks like exporting to PDF or XHTML doesn't work, you can only play the media from within OpenOffice Writer.

 

That's it then - I am exporting to a PDF file to carry around with me, and had been trying to play the

.mp3 from within the PDF file.

 

Oh, well, nice idea if it had worked.

 

Thanks.

 

Roger.

Edited June 23, 2015 by lachenal74693

[linrose]

Have you verified that your system meets the feature support requirements? updates & software release levels?

[Roger Hare]

Have you verified that your system meets the feature support requirements? updates & software release levels?

 

Yup! I'm pretty sure everything is more or less up to date - I tend to check for updates, etc. about

once a month. I might try using the very latest version of OO from PortableApps though - worth a try...

 

Thanks.

 

Roger

[Roger Hare]

It looks like exporting to PDF or XHTML doesn't work, you can only play the media from within OpenOffice Writer.

 

Yup! I just confirmed that it works from within (the latest version of) OO, but (I think) only when preparing a

'Presentation' document (makes some sort of sense I suppose). It doesn't work in the exported file.

 

R

[alex_holden]

On mine Writer does the same thing as Impression. Apparently Adobe Acrobat can embed media files in PDFs, so it must be a limitation of OO rather than the file format.

 

Slightly off-the-wall suggestion, but are you familiar with Wiki syntax at all? If so perhaps you might consider putting your notes into a TiddlyWiki. You edit it in a web browser like Wikipedia but it is(usually) stored locally as a file on your computer. It supports embedded MP3s as long as they are fairly small.

[Roger Hare]

... perhaps you might consider putting your notes into a TiddlyWiki...It supports embedded MP3s as long as they are fairly small.

 

Interesting idea. Thank you. I may try this - however, once encoded using the MuseScore concertina sound

font, the .mp3 files tend to be relatively large - about 1Mb per minute as far as I can see - larger than the

equivalent .mid files. These files may be too large for the application to function efficiently?

 

R

Edited June 24, 2015 by lachenal74693

[alex_holden]

After fiddling around with TiddlyWiki for a bit I figured out how to reference an external MP3 file instead of storing it inside the HTML file. I think this should work with any size of MP3.

 

I'm using Firefox with the TiddlyFox extension for editing, because this handles automatically saving the file whenever you make a change.

 

First download and open a blank TiddlyWiki file, set the title etc., check you can create a new Tiddler (page), enter some text and save it, close the file and reopen it, find the new page again with the search box, etc.

 

Lets say you have an MP3 file called ViderMichel.mp3 stored in the same folder as the TiddlyWiki HTML file.

 

1. Create a new Tiddler with the + button and give it the title "ViderMichel.mp3"

2. Put "audio/mp3" in the Type box. This tells TiddlyWiki you want this Tiddler to be an audio player.

3. Add a field with name "_canonical_uri" and the value "file:ViderMichel.mp3" This tells TW to read the audio data from the specified external file.

4. Save it with the tick icon.

 

You should now have a working music player stored in the ViderMichel.mp3 Tiddler. To include it somewhere in a page of notes, insert the tag {{ViderMichel.mp3}} where you want it to appear.

 

(Anticipating your next question, the way you add an image is by dragging and dropping the file onto the editor window, which imports it as a Tiddler with the same name as the image file that you can then include in any page by referencing its name inside double curly brackets).

Edited June 26, 2015 by alex_holden

[Roger Hare]

After fiddling around with TiddlyWiki for a bit I figured out how to reference an external MP3 file instead of storing

it inside the HTML file. I think this should work with any size of MP3. etc...

 

Phew! I tried it and it works, at least with a small(ish) file. Thanks for your suggestions. I don't know

though, when I'll have time to do it all.

 

Roger