File Export Dialog

From Audacity Development Manual
Revision as of 04:54, 27 November 2009 by Billw58 (talk | contribs) (Update 'save as type' list and descriptions; question re FFmpeg formats)
Jump to: navigation, search

Clicking Export... on the File Menu pops up the Export File dialog:

"Export File" dialog

This lets you specify the folder location and file name of your exported file, and its format (Save as type). The Options button pops up a further dialog for choosing alternative quality settings for each format, here are examples for the Uncompressed options and the MP3 options:

Specify uncompressed options dialog : Specify MP3 options dialog


Therefore, always select the "Save as type" before clicking the Options button. For details of the available options for each format, click its link in the following list of "Save as types":

  • Other uncompressed files: Includes all the uncompressed audio formats that Audacity can export to.
  • AIFF (Apple) signed 16 bit PCM
  • WAV (Microsoft) signed 16 bit PCM
    • There are no options for the AIFF 16 bit and WAV 16 bit file types. WAV and AIFF can both be opened on either Windows or Mac computers. Both WAV and AIFF are lossless. Choose WAV or AIFF whenever you want to burn your exported file to an audio CD.
  • GSM 6.10 WAV (mobile): This file type choice has no options. It produces a WAV file encoded with the GSM 6.10 codec. This is a lossy voice codec producing small file sizes, used on GSM mobile digital telephone networks.
  • MP3 Files: The popular compressed, lossy MP3 format is exported using the LAME MP3 encoder. Use this option if you want a much smaller file than WAV or AIFF, with some loss of audio quality. The format defaults to 128 kbps bit rate, giving you a file of about 1 MB per minute of audio.
How about instead of the above:
  • MP3 Files: To export the popular compressed, lossy MP3 format you will need to have downloaded the LAME MP3 encoder. You can then use the MP3 file type for a much smaller file than WAV or AIFF, with some loss of audio quality. The format defaults to 128 kbps bit rate, giving you a file of about 1 MB per minute of audio.
  • OGG Vorbis Files: Ogg Vorbis is another compressed, lossy format. Compared to MP3, it offers higher quality for the same file size, but fewer applications can play this format.
  • FLAC Files: Despite being compressed, FLAC is lossless like WAV and AIFF. However, FLAC files are larger than MP3s and OGGs, normally taking about 4 MB per minute of audio.
  • MP2 Files: MP2 is a compressed, lossy format similar to MP3. It defaults to a 160 kbps bit rate. This produces comparable quality to 128 kbps MP3, but larger files. It's mainly used at higher bit rates in DVD soundtracks and radio broadcasting.
  • (external program): This sends audio via a command line to an external application either for processing or for encoding as a file. This is a way for example to export to an alternative MP3 encoder, or to a format not supported by Audacity.

ToDo Export options for FFmpeg formats (AAC, AC3, AMR, WMA)
Bill 16Nov09: How do we want to do this? All 4 formats on one page? They're pretty simple. AAC gives a dialog with a slider going from 10 to 500 (whatever that means), the others present a dialog with one popup menu for bit rate.

  • In FFmpeg-enabled builds, there will be a few additional export types available underneath "(external program)", marked with "(FFmpeg)". These are always present in FFmpeg-enabled builds of Audacity, but will only work if you install the FFmpeg libraries.
    Also available in FFmpeg-enabled builds is the Custom FFmpeg Export option.
Retrieved from "http://alphamanual.audacityteam.org/m/index.php?title=File_Export_Dialog&oldid=8150"