Here's how to do sound in an HTML document.

Believe it or not, sound is a bit of a controversial subject when it comes to web sites.  It's difficult to use sound properly, and it usually makes a site annoying to visitors.

I've rarely seen a site which uses sound in a good way.  Now this excludes those sites that just list sound files - that's not using sound, that's just listing some files which people can download.

How many websites have you visited which immediately start up some strange or obnoxious background sound?  As a matter of fact, including a background sound on virtually any site is a great way to chase away visitors. I've never met anyone who liked background sound (except for some webmasters).

If you feel you must include background sound (perhaps for a MIDI or music site), then please, please include an easy, obvious way to turn it off. You will make your visitors happier.

There are quite a few sound formats to choose from. You need to be careful to choose formats which your visitors can listen to - if you choose some strange formats than your music cannot be heard by everyone. And that chases away visitors. What's almost as bad is requiring plug-ins - that chases away visitors pretty fast also (except for real audio, which is an accepted format).

Some of the formats which you can use are listed below.

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