The first question you should ask yourself is "What file format should I use?"

Just as for graphics files, there are dozens of different audio file formats. Throughout the years, certain formats have been adopted as standards for Internet use. Here are the most common formats as processed by all recent versions of browsers:

• .au _ Unix audio format; used a bit less these days
• .mid _ Midi format; just like that used for electronic keyboards
• .mp3 _ A very popular, compressed audio format
• .wav _ Windows audio format; very large files

Many other file formats exist—such as Real Audio, Liquid Audio, and so on—but they require your users to download and install a plug-in to listen to your files.

You can also include your sound files within Flash animations if you want to. You then have to include the Flash animation in your Web page.

The most popular formats, and those that use the smallest file sizes, are the .mid and .mp3 formats. This guide shows examples in .mid, .mp3, and .wav formats.

You can use an audio editing program, such as Cool Edit, to edit and convert your audio files.

Once you have selected an audio file format, you must determine how you want to use it in your Web page. You'll see in the following pages some possible uses and the methods of inserting the files in your Web page.

An early technique for including sounds in a Web page is to use the BGSOUND tag. This tag is recognized only by Internet Explorer. The technique is not used as much lately because it doesn't allow the visitor to cut the music if it bothers him or her.

In AceHTML 6 Pro go to the Specialized tab menu and click the Background Sound button :

Use the button with the open folder icon to browse through the files on your computer and select the audio file to play.

In the Loop box you can specify the number of times you want the file to play before stopping. If you enter the -1 value, it will play in a continuous loop.

Clicking the OK button, will generate code like the following in your HTML page:

<BGSOUND SRC="sound.mid" LOOP="1"></BGSOUND>

Because this is a background sound, it will load at the same time as your Web page. So if you choose a large audio file, in terms of kilobytes, it will slow the loading of your Web page accordingly.

A better alternative to the BGSOUND tag described in the previous section is to use an embedded module.

The Embedded Module button is right next to the BGSOUND button in the Specialized tab menu. Here's the wizard window that will appear. In this example, we have filled in many of the fields to show you what it looks like.

In the Source box, a file has been selected to embed. We've opted for the reduced control panel (instead of the regular large one). It is strongly suggested that you do not hide the control panel. Many of your visitors will prefer to cut the music during their visit, even if it is just to reduce the loading time.

We've also changed the size in Properties to make the control panel 70 ´ 25:

If you check Automatic start, you will get the same effect as with the BGSOUND method. You can also ask to play the file indefinitely.

Here's the sample code that would be generated :
<EMBED SRC="yougotmail.wav" WIDTH="70" HEIGHT="25" CONTROLS="smallconsole"></EMBED>

Sometimes, you just want to offer audio files to your visitors for downloading, so that they can listen to them at will on their own computer.

In that case, simply make an external link to the file, just as you would do to link to another Web page, like this:

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