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Welcome, Audacity manual editors!
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This manual is a work in progress. It relates to the Beta 1.3.9 program, not 1.2.5/6! Audacity 1.3.9 is the basis for our upcoming 2.0 stable release of Audacity.
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Can you help us complete the Manual, or translate it to other languages? If so, please e-mail Gale (gale_AT_audacityteam_DOT_org)
move the manual forward, see the ToDo page.
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If you have obtained the zip version of Audacity or are on Linux, you can download the same Manual here. Instructions are here.
Audacity 1.3.9 User Manual
Printed Manual Only
The following links will not be visible to logged-out online or in the dumped (installed) manual:
Excluded from printed and online Manual
The following old/experimental pages will be excluded from both the printed manual and from the front page of the logged-out online/installed manual. They can still be found online through Search):
- 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
- Batch Preferences - this Preferences tab no longer exists.
About this Manual
The Manual is divided into several sections.
If you're in a hurry, try:
- Audacity for the Impatient - Schematic diagram of Audacity with quick links to the main parts of the interface.
- Getting Started - Quick help to get you recording, importing files, editing and exporting your work in no time.
Otherwise, the Manual contains:
- Tutorials - Walk through various common tasks in more detail.
- Using Audacity - Contains:
- Foundations - Fundamental concepts of digital audio and editing in Audacity.
- Help with Advanced Issues - Read the ones that apply to you as required.
- Reference - Explains every button, tool, menu item and dialog in Audacity.
- Miscellaneous - Glossary, frequently asked questions and license.
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. The reference section needs to be complete for 2.0. 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
Follow links from Special:Lonelypages and Old Pages to find remnants of the old manual.
Tutorials
- Editing an Existing File
- Your First Recording
- Mixing a Narration With Background Music
- Copying tapes, LPs or minidiscs to CD
Using Audacity
Foundations:
- Digital Audio
- What is an Audacity Project?
- Audacity Setup and Configuration
- Playing and Recording
- Audacity Selection
- Audacity Tracks and Clips
- Zooming
- Undo, Redo and History
Help with Advanced Issues:
- Accessibility (Audacity for the visually impaired)
- Working with Audio CDs Audacity cannot import or burn to CDs itself, but read how to work with them here
- Batch Processing (converting multiple files at once)
- Customization (keyboard shortcuts, adding plug-ins and more)
- 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)///must include advice on what to do if recovery fails///
- Scripting (experimental - driving Audacity from a script over named pipes)
- Simplifying Audacity
- Latency Test
Wanted Topics:
- Spectrogram Analysis (or one or more better titles, cover tracking down clicks, square wave as-a-spectrum, beat frequencies).
Reference
Project Window:
The main area where tracks are mixed together (Overview).
- Timeline
- The Tracks: Audio Tracks | Label Tracks | Time Tracks
- Details
Main Menu:
All commands for importing, recording, manipulating and exporting audio (Overview).
- The Menus: Audacity (Mac only) | File | Edit | View | Transport | Tracks | Generate | Effect | Analyze | Window (Mac only) | Help
- Details
- Metadata Editor for editing information tags in exported files
- File Export Dialog including help on which format to export to
- Advanced Mixing Options dialog for exporting multi-channel files
Toolbars:
Buttons and controls for playback, recording and editing (Overview)
- Extra help with Envelope Tool for controlling amplitude changes smoothly, and Multi-Tool (combining all tools in one)
Preferences:
The numerous options to customise Audacity (Overview).
- The Preferences: Devices | Playback | Recording | Quality | Interface | Tracks | Import/Export | Projects | Libraries | Spectrograms | Directories | Warnings | Effects | Keyboard | Mouse
- List of all keyboard shortcuts
Miscellaneous
Index, Glossary and Frequently Asked Questions:
- Index
- Glossary of Terms with links to Wikipedia and/or main Wiki including audio file formats.
- Frequently Asked Questions
Credits, License and Further Information:
- Credits
- License
- Information for Developers - how to join our developer community
- Background Information for the Media - Audacity and free, open-source software
- Audacity Project Format"Audacity Project Format" parked here in case we have an appendix for "file format extensions" - I'm currently unsure - Gale.
- Further Help
Links: Most links are to other pages in this Manual. Bold italicized links are to a description in our Glossary. Other italicised links are to pages external to this Manual, for whose content we are not responsible.
Screenshots: Unless otherwise noted in the hover text of the image, all screenshots of Audacity in the Manual are of Microsoft Windows® operating systems.
Copyright: Unless otherwise noted, all pages on this site are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In essence, you are free to (1) copy, distribute and transmit the work (2) to adapt the work, under condition you must attribute the work to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from us.
