Here we give a complete list of Transcribe!'s keyboard shortcuts. Many of these correspond to menu or toolbar commands and these shortcuts are also documented with the command in question.
There are also many additional shortcuts listed here which do not correspond directly to any menu or toolbar command. This page is worth coming back to as you become more experienced at using Transcribe! as some of these extra shortcuts can be very useful.
We also describe the use of programmable function keys here.
Help, File and Miscellaneous
| <help> | Help |
| Command+N | New File |
| Command+O | Open File |
| Command+P | |
| Command+S | Save |
| Command+W | Close transcription |
| Command+Q | Quit |
Markers
| S | Place Section marker while playing |
| Shift+S | Place Section marker |
| M | Place Measure marker while playing |
| Shift+M | Place Measure marker |
| B | Place Beat marker while playing |
| Shift+B | Place Beat marker |
Adjusting the current selection
| Left Arrow | Enlarge the selection at the left. |
| Right Arrow | Reduce the selection at the left, unless there is none in which case move the current point. |
| Shift+Right Arrow | Enlarge the selection at the right. |
| Shift+Left Arrow | Reduce the selection at the right, unless there is none in which case move the current point. |
| [ , ] | Move whole selection or current point to left or right. |
| Shift+[, Shift+] | Move whole selection or current point to previous or next marker. |
| Ctrl+[, Ctrl+] | Move whole selection or current point to previous or next measure or section marker. |
| Alt+[, Alt+] | Move whole selection or current point to previous or next section marker. |
| E | Set the current point to the currently playing or paused point (no effect if not playing or paused), then scroll the current point or selection into view. |
| D | Select from the current point to the currently playing or paused point (no effect if not playing or paused). For a weird effect, try holding this key down while playback is looping. |
| 1,2,3 | Set the current point to the left, middle or right of the window. This can cause a forwards playback jump if the current point is now to the right of where you were playing. |
| J,K,L | These create a small (1, 2 or 3 tenths of a second respectively) selection, centred on the currently playing point. This is intended to allow instant looping of a single note (if you have loop mode switched on). |
| U,I | These cancel any existing selection, placing the current point at either the left or the right edge (respectively) of where the selection was. |
Adjusting the scale of the waveform profile display
| Ctrl+Right Arrow | Enlarge the horizontal scale (stretch the profile out). |
| Ctrl+Left Arrow | Reduce the horizontal scale (squeeze the profile up). |
| Ctrl+Up Arrow | Enlarge the vertical scale. |
| Ctrl+Down Arrow | Reduce the vertical scale. |
Scrolling the waveform profile display without changing the current point or selection
| Up/Down Arrow | Line-scroll (like buttoning the arrows on the scroll bar). |
| Up/Down Page | Page-scroll (like buttoning the scroll bar to the right or left of the thumb). |
| Home/End | Go to the beginning or end of the piece. |
| Q | Scroll the current point or selection into view. |
| W | Scroll the currently playing or paused point into view (no effect if not playing or paused). This is irrelevant if scroll mode is on. |
Playback control
| <spacebar> | Start Play |
| . (period, fullstop) | Stop Play |
| , (comma) | Pause/Unpause Play |
| c | Cue (skip rapidly forwards) |
| r | Review (skip rapidly backwards) |
| Command+L | Loop mode on/off |
| Command+R | Scroll mode on/off |
| Command+E | EQ on/off |
| Command+M | Stereo Mix on/off |
| Shift+L | Stereo mix to full left |
| Shift+C | Stereo mix to centre |
| Shift+R | Stereo mix to full right |
| Alt+1 | Synchronize speed |
| Alt+2 | Half speed |
| Alt+4 | Quarter speed |
'Z' when pressed : . Play only as long as the key is held down.
When released : pause playback.
';' (or key to right of 'L') when pressed : if paused then resume playback.
If playing already then continue playing. If stopped then start playback as
if <spacebar> was pressed. Play only as long as the key is held down.
When released : pause playback.
The effect of this is that this key can be used to play back progressively, resuming playback each time the key is pressed at the point where playback paused when the key was last released.
Function Keys
The function keys can be programmed to start playback in various ways.
For each of them, you press Shift+Function Key to bring up a dialog enabling you to program the key, or you press the Function Key on its own to initiate playback accordingly. You have to have an active transcription with a sound file loaded before you can program any function keys.
Note about Mac OS 9 : Shift-function key may not immediately work as described here.
Shift-function key (when you have a transcription as your frontmost window)
should bring up a dialog for programming function keys for playback. However in
OS 9 you may instead get a dialog from the Mac OS offering to program function
keys to launch programs and other system-like things. You can prevent this by
selecting "Control Panels" - "Keyboard" and then on the "Function Keys" tab there
is a checkbox called "Use F1 through F15 as hot function keys". Uncheck this and
all should be well.
All the playback function keys can be programmed but you should bear in mind that F1 to F4 are global which means whatever you program them to do, they will do the same whatever transcription you are working on. This means you cannot program them to play from a specified point in the transcription you are working on, as this might well be meaningless when you switch to another transcription.
From F5 upwards the function keys are transcription-wide which means that whatever you program them to do, will be saved and restored with the transcription you are working on. This means that you can program them to play from a specified point in the transcription you are working on, and it also means that they can do different things in each transcription you work on.
The "Program Function Key Playback" dialog offers the following options :
And for F5 upwards only you get the "Current Point or Selection" box which allows you to program the function key to take you to a particular place in the piece :
Here are the defaults for the playback function keys :
| F1 | Normal playback. |
| F2 | Half speed. |
| F3 | Up octave at normal speed. |
| F4 | Quarter speed. |
| F5 upwards | Normal playback from start of piece. |
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