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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.

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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.

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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

• Audacity for the Impatient (all you need to know in one page)
• What's New in Audacity 1.3.2
• Theme Preferences
• Transcription Toolbar disabled
• How to get help
• Sample rates (may be a candidate for a technical appendix or similar later)

On the way out entirely

These also only available on-line.

• Batch Preferences

Tutorials

• Tutorial - Editing an Existing File
• Tutorial - Your First Recording
• Tutorial - Mixing a Narration With Background Music
• Tutorial - Copying tapes, LPs or minidiscs to CD (including full description of noise removal more briefly described in Effect Menu or only a link to it Effect Menu ??? and including splitting into multiple tracks)

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

One potentially valuable "foundation" we actually don't have is "Audacity Projects" (dealing with the Saving and Exporting confusion).... File Formats in the reference (renamed to Audio File Formats) can then merely div note a reference to the Foundations article (so again, it's in their face that audio files are *not* the same as Project files). Should we be more attention-grabbing so people read that article? "What is an Audacity Project"?... - Gale

I've moved things around a bit to make What is an Audacity Project? a reality, but it's still in an almighty mess at the moment. Can't see the way forward clearly yet.--James

• Digital Audio
• Audacity Tracks and Clips
• Audacity Selection
• Audacity Setup and Configuration
• What is an Audacity Project?
• Playing and Recording
• Zooming
• Undo, Redo and History

Unused section now:

Modifying Audio

Other Features of Audacity

• Working With Multi-Track Audio
• Recording Quality
• Recovery (if Audacity crashes or if you lose part of an Audacity project)
• Batch Processing (converting multiple files at once)
• Customization (keyboard shortcuts, adding plug-ins and more)
• Simplifying Audacity
• Accessibility (Audacity for the visually impaired)

• 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:

• File
  • File Export Dialog
  • Advanced Mixing Options
• Edit
  • Editing: Cut, Paste and More
• View
• Tracks
• Generate
• Effects
  • Built-in Effects including detailed help for some of the more complex effects:
    • Auto Duck
    • Compressor
    • Equalization
    • Noise Removal
  • VST Plug-in Effects
  • Nyquist Effects
  • LADSPA Effects
• Analyze
  • Spectrum
• Help

Toolbars:

• Tools
  • Envelope Tool
• Control
• Edit
• Mixer
• Meter
• Transcription
• Selection

Project Window:

• Timeline
• Tracks
  • Audio Tracks
    • Track Drop-Down Menu
    • Mixing Audio Tracks
  • Label Tracks
  • Time Tracks

Preferences:

• Audio I/O
• Quality
• Import / Export
• Interface
• Spectrograms
• Directories
• Keyboard
• Mouse

File Formats

How about we lose this section entirely? Pages like MP3 format become MP3 Options and live under File Export Dialog in the reference section. MP3 Options loses the text telling you what MP3 format is (it is already there in File Export Dialog). All the text that was in File Formats describing what MP2 format, FLAC format is move into the glossary, perhaps as a separate table there for file formats?--James
I've been thinking much the same - my main concern was what to usefully say on the File Formats page that does not duplicate what is on File Export Dialog. I believe some explanation at least as detailed as currently there is needed to help users make a choice of which format to use. I don't expect we need to link to each format options page on the main page, but maybe note the formats supported alongside the link to File Export Dialog. Don't know yet if we need an appendix for Audio File Formats or can say it in the glossary. My feeling is the glossary should not have a separate section for file formats as we already have (and probably need) generic entries for lossy/lossless and compressed / uncompressed audio format. Audio CDs may possibly still need its own section somewhere (as well as having an entry in Glossary) as of course burning CDs is functionality quite a few users look for in Audacity and wonder where it is. These are relatively minor consideration for now though. - Gale

• Audacity Project Format
• WAV, AIFF and uncompressed formats
• MP3 format
  • LAME MP3 encoding
• Ogg Vorbis format
• FLAC format
• MP2 format
• Command line export to other formats
• Audio CDs

Other

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Information for Developers - how to join our developer community
• Glossary - with links to Wikipedia.
• Index
• Credits
• License

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