I have a powerpoint presentation with music running in the background. In custom animation there is a setting to tell PowerPoint not to show the little megaphone when sound is not playing. I cannot make this icon disappear on all of the pages. (Many of the music files play for a number of slides, using the setting that tells how many slides to run the music file.)

I cannot figure out any consistent pattern for when this icon appears in the middle of a slide. Sometimes in is on the slides where the music file begins, sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is oon the continuation slides, sometimes it is not. I should add that, to eliminate abrupt endings to the music files, we continue a music animation one extra slide so that it overlaps the new music file beginning on that slide. That is, if we have a music animation to be played on slides 1 - 10, then another music animation to play on slides 11 - 20, the first music animation is set to run for 11 slides, not 10, even though the new music animation begins on slide 11. This makes for a pretty good segue of the music. My issue with the megaphone icon does NOT seem to be related to this overlap of music files, but I thought I should mention it.

You just cannot have that stupid megaphone sitting there on a high-end presentation. Anyone know how to make it completely go away and never, ever show up in the slide show?

When you insert a sound object, and you're sure it's going to stay, a little trick I would recommend is manually moving the icon off the edge of the page so it no longer sits ON slide, but is off to the left.

Well, your great answer sure makes me feel stupid for not thinking of it myself. Thank you very much.

It's only good if it doesn't create other problems in the future.

Make a note in the slide notes about the sound icon being off to the side.

Also, your mileage may vary on sound clips you start manually, but I believe automatic ones will work just fine.