# How to use Audacity

From Audacity Development Manual

## How To Use Audacity

### Quick Help

- Getting Started - Recording, Importing, Editing, Exporting...
  - Audacity Tour Guide - quick tour of selected features of Audacity
- Installing and updating Audacity
  - Audacity Setup and Configuration
  - Themes - learn how to select your preferred Audacity look and feel
  - Installing plugins - you can download and install plugins to add extra functionality to Audacity
  - Plugin Manager
  - Changing language
  - Resetting Audacity to default settings
- Connecting audio equipment - Microphones, instruments, USB devices...
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - most common questions are answered in the FAQ

### Playing and Recording

- Playing and Recording
  - Playback
  - Recording
  - Monitoring
  - Quick-Play
  - Looping
  - Scrubbing
  - Timer Recording
  - Punch and Roll Recording
  - Latency when recording overdubs or using Punch and Roll

### Importing and Exporting Audio Files

- Importing audio and Exporting audio files - For use in other applications
  - FFmpeg import/export libraries for more formats
  - LAME MP3 export - only required for Linux
  - Metadata Editor

### Editing with Audacity

- Selecting audio
  - Navigating and identifying audio for editing
  - Boundary Snap Guides
  - Track focus
- Audio Alignment
  - Beats and Measures, Music View
- Copy and Paste a section of audio
- Clips - individual sections within an Audio Track
- Splitting and Joining Stereo Tracks
- Zooming Overview and Vertical Zooming
- Effects, Generators and Analyzers
- Creating a Crossfade
- Mixing Audio Tracks
- Undo, Redo and History
- Spectral Selection and Editing

### Help with Advanced Topics

- Using realtime effects
- Macros - for batch processing and effects automation
- Mixer - analogous to a hardware mixer board
- Accessibility - Audacity for the visually impaired
- Sync-Locked Track Groups
- Crash Recovery
- Portable Audacity
- Multi-channel Recording - recording more than two separate channels of audio
- LOF Files for Importing sets of audio files

### Customizing Audacity

- Adding plugins & other customization
  - Creating Nyquist plugins
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Scripting

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