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From Audacity Manual
Audacity 1.3.10 User Manual
About this Manual
The Manual is divided into several sections.
If you're in a hurry, try:
- Audacity for the Impatient - Schematic diagram of Audacity with quick links to the main parts of the interface.
- Getting Started - Quick help to get you recording, importing files, editing and exporting your work in no time.
Otherwise, the Manual contains:
- Tutorials - Walk through various common tasks in more detail.
- Using Audacity - Fundamental concepts and advanced issues.
- Reference - Explains every button, tool, menu item and dialog in Audacity.
- Miscellaneous - Glossary, frequently asked questions and license.
Tutorials
- Editing an Existing File
- Your First Recording
- Mixing a Narration With Background Music
- Copying tapes, LPs or minidiscs to CD
Using Audacity
Foundations:
- Digital Audio
- What is an Audacity Project?
- Audacity Setup and Configuration
- Playing and Recording
- Audacity Selection
- Audacity Tracks and Clips
- Zooming
- Undo, Redo and History
Help with Advanced Issues:
- Accessibility (Audacity for the visually impaired)
- Working with Audio CDs Audacity cannot import or burn to CDs itself, but read how to work with them here
- Batch Processing (converting multiple files at once)
- Customization (keyboard shortcuts, adding plug-ins and more)
- Recording Quality (/// this should be expanded or better, incorporated in the recording tutorial///)
- Recovery (if Audacity crashes or if you lose part of an Audacity project)///must include advice on what to do if recovery fails///
- Scripting (experimental - driving Audacity from a script over named pipes)
- Simplifying Audacity
- Latency Test
Reference
Project Window:
The main area where tracks are mixed together (Overview).
- Timeline
- The Tracks: Audio Tracks | Label Tracks | Time Tracks
- Details
Main Menu:
All commands for importing, recording, manipulating and exporting audio (Overview).
- The Menus: Audacity (Mac only) | File | Edit | View | Transport | Tracks | Generate | Effect | Analyze | Window (Mac only) | Help
- Details
- Metadata Editor for editing information tags in exported files
- File Export Dialog including help on which format to export to
- Advanced Mixing Options dialog for exporting multi-channel files
Toolbars:
Buttons and controls for playback, recording and editing (Overview)
- Extra help with Envelope Tool for controlling amplitude changes smoothly, and Multi-Tool (combining all tools in one)
Preferences:
The numerous options to customise Audacity (Overview).
- The Preferences: Devices | Playback | Recording | Quality | Interface | Tracks | Import/Export | Projects | Libraries | Spectrograms | Directories | Warnings | Effects | Keyboard | Mouse
- List of all keyboard shortcuts
Miscellaneous
Index, Glossary and Frequently Asked Questions:
- Index
- Glossary of Terms with links to Wikipedia and/or main Wiki including audio file formats.
- Frequently Asked Questions
Credits, License and Further Information:
- Credits
- License
- Information for Developers - how to join our developer community
Links: Most links are to other pages in this Manual. Bold italicized links are to a description in our Glossary. Other italicised links are to pages external to this Manual, for whose content we are not responsible.
Screenshots: Unless otherwise noted in the hover text of the image, all screenshots of Audacity in the Manual are of Microsoft Windows® operating systems.
Copyright: Unless otherwise noted, all pages on this site are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In essence, you are free to (1) copy, distribute and transmit the work (2) to adapt the work, under condition you must attribute the work to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from us.
