The sound of the animation does not play during the slide show in PowerPoint 2003

When you animate the title placeholder, if there is a sound effect assigned to that animation, the sound does not play during the slide show or when you preview the animation.

This problem occurs when if the following conditions are true:

• A line or a fill color has been assign to the title placeholder.
  
  -and-
• The text animation has the As one object option turned on in a text frame or in a shape with text.

Use one of the following methods to work around this problem.

Turn Off the Animate Attached Shape Option:

To work around this problem, prevent the title placeholder frame from animating. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click the text frame or shape.
2. On the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation.
3. Right-click the animation entry for the text frame or shape, and then click Effect Options.
4. Click the Text Animation tab.
5. Click to clear the Animate attached shape check box.
6. Click OK.

Add a Separate Shape

You can also add a shape, assign the fills and line styles that you want, and then move the new shape behind the text frame to work around this problem. You can animate this shape separately from the text frame, and you can set the shape to animate before the text animates.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.