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Welcome, Audacity manual editors!

This is both the front page of the online manual, and the road map for the printed manual. The printed manual is assembled by concatenating all of the articles found on this page, in this order. Anything which is not directly linked from this page will not go in the printed manual.

Links to another page, like [[File Menu]], become page references in the PDF, e.g. File Menu (Page 73).

External hyperlinks, like [http://example.com Example Website], appear in the text as Example Website1 with a footnote containing the URL.

Please read Editing Help to learn about wiki text formatting.

To update the PDF file, see the Export page.

We should try to be consistent in terms of wording and page layout. Layout issues for some page families are still being discussed. See Consistency for current suggested guidelines.

Images: Please ensure all images have appropriate ALT-text. This should be something that describes the contents of the image in the context of its surrounding text for someone who cannot see it.


Audacity Logo


This manual is a work in progress. It relates to the Beta 1.3.5 program, not 1.2.5/6! Audacity 1.3.5 is the basis for our upcoming 1.4.0 stable release of Audacity.

If you would like a Wiki account so that you can help us to complete it, e-mail James (James_AT_audacityteam_DOT_org)


For ideas on what needs to be done to move the manual forward, see:

essential changes to "Audacity for the Impatient" and essential changes to other Manual pages. Also visit the ToDo page.


None of these 'Download The Manual' links yet work properly. For now use this wiki. We'll get these other links working later.

Download the manual as a zip file

Alternate: Download the manual as a PDF file

Alternate: Download the manual as an RTF file (works great in Microsoft Word)

I've given the zip the most prominence, since this is what most people will need to access help from within Audacity.


Audacity 1.3.5 User Manual

Printed Manual Only

The following links will not be visible to users browsing the manual online.

Online Manual Only

The following links will not be included in the printed manual. You can do this with any text by wrapping it in <div class="noexport"> html tags.

Tutorials


This manual has two main parts to it:

  • A step by step guide. Organised by tasks (the Tutorials and the Using Audacity sections).
  • A reference section. Organised by GUI structure.

The reference section should be naming the parts of the GUI and saying in outline what they do.

Follow links from Special:Lonelypages and Old Pages to find remnants of the old manual.

The reference section needs to be complete for 1.4.0. I think it's OK if we don't finish all the tutorials, and drop the ones which are incomplete from the html help. JC

Using Audacity

Foundations

Modifying Audio

I am still not 100% comfortable with this rather arbitrary distinction between "reference" and these "explanatory" articles which are not really full tutorials either (those should cover a wider process). Do we want both a non-tutorial Editing: Cut, Paste, and More and a tutorial on Editing? Should the former not be merged into File Menu now we have the principle of quick text? - Gale

The dividing line I'm taking is that if you need a before-and-after image, then it does not belong in the reference section. As soon as you have a before-and-after it's doing 'steps to do XYZ...'. I myself am comfortable with a separate page Editing: Cut, Paste, and More, and linking to it rather than incorporating it in File Menu or Edit Toolbar. I do regard Editing: Cut, Paste, and More as tutorial material, albeit tutorial-lite. Your way could work too. At the moment the reference section titles are all specific widgets or GUI elements. I like that. The 'book' organisation will take ONLY the pages linked here directly from this page, and in the order they are linked. If you mix some tutorial-lite sections in with the reference section without page-merging, the titles of those pages must appear in that section of this page. I'm not radically opposed to your plan, it does have lots of merit. However, there'll still be some topics that are tutorial-lite and aren't reference, so I don't think it solves anything.--James
Sure, I'd entirely envisage there would be some sections that are tutorial-lite and not reference. However as an example, moving the Applying Effects link to somewhere under "Effects" in the "Menu Bar" reference would help reduce the sections of the front page which have these tutorial-lite links. My feeling is to keep those sections as short as possible, and let them contain only links that don't naturally attach to an individual link in the reference section. We examine the links we currently have in the tutorial-lite sections of the front page to see if they can be merged into current reference pages without overburdening those pages. I think we still play this by ear really. My concern is that the sections of the front page containing these tutorial-lite links are not all that clear as to their purpose and as to how they differ from the reference. It may be that refining their categorization them and/or dreaming up a generic title that distinguishes them from Reference (maybe even using another word than "Reference") might help.- Gale

I know there are lots of images but we just put a load of images in Track Drop-Down Menu? - Gale

When we've done all the topics on the Track Drop-Down Menu page, we might find we want to move the audio-tracks part to Audio Tracks. We'll see. It's not the number of images that matter, it's the switching back and forth between item->explanation, item->explanation and howto->step->step->step on the same page that I care about--James.

We may well want to make that move (or more likely, live with part-duplicating the vertical scale explanation on Track Drop-Down Menu and Audio Tracks). The latter needs to say it as well I think. Again, we'll see about merging the contents of Editing: Cut, Paste, and More inside a current reference page. It may or may not work (for the reason you state), but should be considered. Again, remember that if well done, many users may well prefer some how-to on the same page rather than shunting to a different page.

Why is "Smooth Volume Changes...'" a section on its own when say "Moving tracks and clips with Time Shift Tool" isn't? Because of the length? Logically, that is not a very good justification IMO. - Gale
History, I'd say. In my view both deserve a page of their own. Tools Toolbar should be linking to reference pages on each. As we do not have a reference page for envelopes and do have a tutorial page already, it's less work to link to the tutorial. It says more than a reference page would, but that's acceptable for the saving in work. We're not mixing styles on the same page.--James
Time Shift Tool is a reference page on its own now, of course. But in my view "Smooth Volume Changes" should not be linked to in the tutorial-lite section of the front page just because it happened to be written in part tutorial style, but in the Reference section of the front page. We already agree "Compressor" is linked to in the Reference not in the tutorial-lite sections (although to be really useful, it will I think have to include some how-to material). That is, we don't want to end up linking to it in the tutorial-lite section as "Dynamic range reduction with the Compressor".
I do think we have to be flexible about Toolbar pages as to whether GUI items in a particular toolbar have their own page or not. IMO it would be duplication for Zoom Tool to have its own page as there is not much you can say about it in the first place.

I would have a "Foundations" section and "Other Features" or similar for things that are specific yet wider than (so don't logically relate to) a Reference page. Everything else is a link-out from a Reference page in an appropriate place e.g. "Applying Effects" is under Effects in the Reference. Splitting Stereo Tracks is under Tracks. And even then, *only* if they cannot be conveniently merged into the detailed text in the reference page. - Gale
Applying Effects as currently written is definitely Tutorial content. The reference for the Effect Menu already says:

To apply an effect, select part or all of the tracks you want to modify, and select the effect from the menu. Titles which end in an ellipsis (...) will bring up a dialog asking you for more parameters.

That is all a reference needs (or should) say. Pretty much agree. Effect Menu can link to the tutorial on Applying Effects, but that does NOT belong in a reference section.
I entirely agree for much of that content. What we're arguing is the case that the *link* to Applying Effects on the front page should be placed in the Reference section, not in the confusing tutorial-lite sections. Looking at the content of Applying Effects, it looks to me mostly like an historical appendage we don't even need now. It's more a tutorial for using Amplify tool, if it's any use at all. So rather than keep it as is, I'd think we (I) should merge/rewrite whatever is useful in it somehow. It's perfectly possible to do that.
We should consider the other page-mergers case-by-case. If we can lets keep the reference as it currently is as an anatomy of the GUI, organized in terms of the GUI itself rather than in terms of tasks.--James
As I've said before, much of our duplication problem is that the GUI is itself task-arranged to a large extent. We've agreed about the balance of reference information and how-to on Track Drop-Down Menu so I would not expect we'd disagree much about that balance on other reference pages. - Gale


Other Features of Audacity

  • Recovery is a must and there should be advice on what to do if recovery fails (given it really isn't 100% reliable).
  • Accessibility - Should include the JAWS guide (ready now). Shortcuts must be described (a major job, or are you suggesting not doing that for release?). We can write a short paragraph linking to Audacity Tracks and Clips, the Selection Bar etc. What else is needed that should hold this up in your opinion? - Thanks, Gale


Wanted Topics

The Wanted Topics are in a 'noexport' section. Suggest we don't start writing them yet. They're not essential for 1.4.0.
  • Spectrogram Analysis (or one or more better titles, cover tracking down clicks, square wave as-a-spectrum, beat frequencies).

Reference

Menu Bar:

Toolbars:

Project Window:

Preferences:

File Formats

Other

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