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Float Edit Toolbar: moves the “edit toolbar” out of the window and into its own
floating window, so you can position it wherever you want. The menu item changes to
“dock edit toolbar”, which you can use to put the toolbar back into the main window.
Float Meter Toolbar: does the same thing for audacity's VU meters, which you use
to set recording levels and adjust playback.
Float Mixer Toolbar: moves the “mixer toolbar” out of the window, into its own
floating window as above.
The “Project” Menu
Import Audio: imports audio from a standard audio format into your project. Use this
command if you already have a couple of tracks, but still want to add another track to
the same project, perhaps to mix them together. You cannot use this option to import
Audacity Projects. The only way to combine two Audacity Projects is to open them in
separate windows, then copy and paste the tracks.
Import Labels: takes a text file containing time codes and labels, and converts them
into a “label track”.
Import MIDI: imports MIDI files and puts them into a MIDI Track. Audacity can
display MIDI files, but cannot play, edit, or save them yet.
Import Raw Data: allows you to open a file in virtually any uncompressed format.
When you select the file, Audacity analyzes it and tries to guess its format. Its guess
percentage is about 90%, therefore you just press on "OK" and listening to the result.
If it is not correct, however, you can use the options in the dialog box to try some
other possible encodings.
At the beginning of your imported track(s), you may notice a little bit of noise. This is
probably the file's header, which Audacity was not able to compress. Just zoom in
and select the noise with the “selection tool”, and then choose “delete” from the “edit
menu”.
Edit ID3 Tags: opens a dialog box, allowing you to edit the ID3 tags associated with
a project for MP3 exporting.
Quick Mix: mixes all selected tracks. If you are mixing stereo tracks, or mixing tracks
that are marked as “left or right channel”, they result in a stereo track (two channels).
Otherwise, the result will be mono.
Whenever you press the Play button and whenever you export, your tracks are
implicitly mixed. This command offers a way to do it permanently and save the results
to the disk, saving space on the playback resources.
Note that if you try to mix two very loud tracks together, you may get clipping (it will
sound like pops, clicks, and noise). To avoid this, drag down the gain slider on the
tracks in order to reduce their volume before mixing.
New Audio Track: creates a new, empty audio track. As importing, recording, and
mixing automatically creates new tracks as needed, this command is hardly needed.
