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Welcome, Audacity manual editors!

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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 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)
• Editing for Beginners - Cut, Copy and Paste
• Editing for Beginners - Introduction
• Editing for Beginners - Silence, Duplicate and Split
• Editing for Beginners - Splitting and Submixes
• Sample rates (may be a candidate for a technical appendix or similar later)
• Theme Preferences
• Transcription Toolbar disabled
• What's New in Audacity 1.3.2

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

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
I've had a quick glance at it - thanks. Actually I am not very worried about this at the moment. We link to it in appropriate places in the reference and it may or may not require a separate more technical appendix about it as per the current Audacity Project Format. On current content, I don't think a separate page is justified. A placeholder for .aup has been added to Glossary. I think "What is an Audacity Project?" could be a step by step tutorial with images if we have time, through from import, saving a Project a few times then exporting. I don't think that's essential, maybe only that we state that as an example scenario. As moving Audacity Projects under Foundations was my idea, maybe let me work on Audacity Projects and see what I come up with based on the content you've dropped in there - though I'm not necessarily going to do it immediately .

• 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

Help with Advanced Issues

• Working With Multi-Track Audio
• Working with Audio CDs Audacity cannot import or burn to CDs itself, but read how to work with them here

Is this the best place for "Audio CDs"??

• 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)
• 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 including help on which format to export to
    • Export options for: I suppose when these option pages are finished they should be renamed "format Export Options" in upper case as more page titles than not capitalise nouns. Not a big problem as no other pages now link here - Gale
    • WAV, AIFF and uncompressed types
    • MP3 and obtaining the LAME MP3 encoder
    • Ogg Vorbis
    • FLAC
    • MP2
    • Command line export
  • Advanced Mixing Options
• Edit
  • Editing Help: Cut, Paste and More
• View
• Tracks
• Generate
• Effects
  • Detailed help for some of the more complex built-in effects:
    
  • Auto Duck
  • Compressor
  • Equalization
  • Noise Removal
    Additional effects via plug-ins:
    
  • VST Plug-in Effects
  • Nyquist Effects
  • LADSPA Effects
• Analyze
  • Spectrum
• Help

Toolbars:

• Tools
  • Envelope Tool for controlling amplitude envelopes
• 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 section now removed. Pages like MP3 format are now MP3 Export Options and are parked under File Export Dialog in the reference section. MP3 Export Options and similar lose their text telling you what MP3 format is (it is already there in File Export Dialog). A basic description of each format will be in Glossary. We may or may not have extra text for the formats as a "File extensions" appendix including the current content of Audacity Project Format. If we get the level of text right in File Export Dialog and link to the Glossary with links to Wikipedia or our Wiki this might not be needed, except that it's still handy for people importing these formats. - Gale

Other

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Information for Developers - how to join our developer community
• Glossary - with links to Wikipedia and/or main Wiki including audio file formats.
• Audacity Project Format

"Audacity Project Format" parked here in case we have an appendix for "file format extensions" - I'm currently unsure - Gale

• Index
• Credits
• License

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Further help if you need it (preferably expand and complete this page or delete it in favour of Wiki and Forum links)

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Unless otherwise noted in the hover text of the image, all screenshots of Audacity in the Manual are of Microsoft Windows operating systems.