Keyboard Preferences

Summary

This preferences screen is used to set up the correspondence between keyboard key combinations and commands in Audacity. These are known as 'Key bindings'.

-- This is a pre V.1.3.2 image --

Keyboard Preferences

How to Change Key Bindings

To set a new binding

• Click in the text box to the left of the 'Set' button.
• Press a key-combination such as Ctrl and Shift and R. The text box will show Ctrl+Shift+R.
• Now click on the command in the scrollable list that you would like to be bound to Ctrl+Shift+R
• Now click on the 'Set' button. The binding will be set.

To clear an existing binding

• On the list of commands, click on the binding you want to clear.
• Click the 'Clear' button. The binding will be cleared.

Other Options

The remaining buttons on this preferences tab are:

• Defaults use this to restore the key bindings to their defaults.
• Save... to save the current key bindings to an xml file.
• Load... to load previously saved key bindings from an xml file.

See Keyboard Shortcut Reference for the default key bindings.

Keyboard

• Commands/Key Combination List
  All commands in Audacity that can be triggered by a keyboard shortcut are listed here. Click on the shortcut and the assigned keystroke is highlighted in the command/shortcut list. Click on the "Clear" button to erase the keystroke assigned to the function selected in the Commands column.
• Adding new shortcuts/changing shortcuts
  Click on the command in the list. Click in to the field next to the "Set" button and press any key or combination of command key(Shift,CTRL,ALT) and alphanumeric key(everything else). The description of that key or key combo will appear in the field or replace the existing keystroke. By clicking on the "Set" button, you can add or change this key or key combo as a shortcut to the function selected in the Commands list.
• Saving your setup You can export your keyboard shortcut settings for safekeeping or to import into audacity on another machine. Use Save... to save you settings to a file, Load... to load a saved settings file, and Defaults to restore the default audacity settings.

Head over to this page for step-by-step description of the dialog and how to edit the command/keyboard combination list with a text editor.