Once you insert a sound file, there’s another icon on the slide to clutter up an otherwise streamlined vision. Rather than struggle to find a good location for the icon that represents the automatically playing sound file, get it off your slide with one of two simple methods.

Method 1: Drag and drop

You can easily remove the sound icon from your audience’s view by dragging the icon off the slide design area into the gray area, as shown in Figure A. While still associated with the slide, the sound icon doesn’t display on the slide in any view.

Method 2: Select hide (2003)

With PowerPoint 2003, you can hide the sound icon while in slideshow mode but allow it to remain in other views. Use this feature when you want to see the icon while you’re editing, but don’t want the excess clutter during delivery. You can access the Hide Sound Icon During Slide Show check box shown in Figure B in two ways:

• Right-click on the sound icon and choose Edit Sound Object. The check box is in the Sound Options dialog box.
• In the Custom Animation task pane, select Effect Options from the dropdown list and then click the Sound Settings tab to reveal the check box.

Adapt for PowerPoint 2007

In PowerPoint 2007, you can use many of the same ways we describe in this article to hide your sound icon. For CD sounds in particular, you’ll see a CD Audio Tools ribbon display, which contains an Options tab. On the Options tab, in the Setup group, you can select the Hide During Show check box.

Filed under: Microsoft Office Tutor