I've come up with a way to keep the speaker icon on the
slide without being seen, but I put it in the same place
every time so I know where to click on it. Right-click on
the speaker icon, then choose "Format Picture," then click
on the "Picture" tab. Click and drag the brightess and
contrast sliders all the way to zero (left), and the icon
becomes invisible, yet you can still click on it to select
it and work with it if need be. I always place it in the
lower right corner - that way, I never have to remember
where I put it, and I never have to look for it.
Being a musician, I work with .wav files a lot in
PowerPoint, and handling the icon this way has proven very
useful for me.
Regarding the buttons you mention; that's a user option
for each computer, and PP doesn't have a mechanism (that I
know of) to disable them.
Incidentally, if you need custom music tracks for your
presentations, with our without vocals, and at
extraordinarily reasonable rates, feel free to contact me
at (e-mail address removed).
