View Menu: Zoom

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The Zoom commands enable you to control the amount of audio, longer or shorter periods of time, that is visible on your screen.
See Also: Zooming for details about other ways to zoom in and out, for example, using the magnifier icons on the edit toolbar.
View Menu has commands that determine the amount of detail you see in all the tracks in the project window. It also lets you show or hide Toolbars and some additional windows such as Undo HistoryTransport Menu commands let you play or stop, loop play, scrub play or record (including timed and sound activated recordings)Tracks Menu provides commands for creating and removing tracks, applying operations to selected tracks such as mixing, resampling or converting from stereo to mono, and lets you add or edit labelsGenerate Menu lets you create audio containing tones, noise or silenceAudacity includes many built-in effects and also lets you use a wide range of plug-in effectsThe Analyze Menu contains tools for finding out about the characteristics of your audio, or labeling key featureThe Tools Menu contains customisable toolsThe Extra menu provides access to additional Commands that are not available in the normal default Audacity menusThe Help Menu lets you find out more about the Audacity application and how to use it. It also includes some diagnostic tools.Zoom in/out on the horizontal axisControls the sizes of tracksMove forward/backwards through the audioBrings up the History window which can then be left open while using Audacity normallyBrings up the Karaoke window, which displays the labels in a "bouncing ball" scrolling displayMixer Board is an alternative view to the audio tracks in the main tracks windowToolbars can be used to determine which of the Audacity toolbars are displayedShows extra menus with many extra less-used commandsOption to show or not show audio that is too loud (in red) on the wave formZooms in on the horizontal axis of the audio displaying more detail over a shorter length of timeZooms to the default view which displays about one inch per secondZooms out displaying less detail over a greater length of timeZooms in or out so that the selected audio fills the width of the windowChanges the zoom back and forth between two preset levelsEnable for left-click gestures in the vertical scale to control zoomingThe MenusView-ZoomMenu.png
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The Zoom In and Zoom Out commands will attempt to keep the editing cursor position, or the selection, centered in the track display. That may not always be possible.
  • If the editing cursor or selection is near the start or end of the track and "Enable scrolling left of zero" is off (default setting), then it may not be possible for the zoom in or zoom out commands to place the editing cursor or selection at the center of the track display.
  • If "Enable scrolling left of zero" is on then it will always be possible for the zoom in or zoom out commands to place the editing cursor or selection at the center of the track display.
Bulb icon Zooming is usually done using the last 5 buttons on the Edit Toolbar
  • Zooming can also be done using the Mouse Wheel (if you have one).

Zoom In  Ctrl + 1

  • View > Zoom > Zoom In: Doubles the current zoom level.

Zooms in on the horizontal axis of the audio, displaying more detail over a shorter length of time. You can also use the Zoom tool from the Tools Toolbar to zoom in on a particular part of the window.


Zoom Normal  Ctrl + 2

  • View > Zoom > Zoom Normal: Reverts back to Audacity's default zoom, where you can see 5 - 10 seconds at a time.

Zooms to the default view, which displays about one inch per second. It centers the cursor in the track display, or if you have a selection it will attempt to keep some part of a selection visible.


Zoom Out  Ctrl + 3

  • View > Zoom > Zoom Out: Cuts the current zoom level in half.

Zooms out, displaying less detail over a greater length of time.


Zoom to Selection  Ctrl + E

  • View > Zoom > Zoom to Selection: If you have audio selected, this zooms and scrolls so that the selection just fits in the window.

Zooms in or out so that the selected audio fills the width of the project window. Its most useful purpose is to zoom in when the selection is only a small part of the visible waveform.

If there is a region of audio selected and it is not visible on the screen, the Zoom to Selection command will move the selection to fill the track display.


Zoom Toggle  Shift + Z

Toggles between two pre-defined zoom levels, these are user selectable in Tracks Preferences.

Defaults are normal Default Zoom level and 4 Pixels per Sample (which shows a fraction of a second of audio as samples).


Advanced Vertical Zooming  

Turns "on" (or "off") Advanced Vertical Zooming in the Vertical Scale.

This will enable you to use left-click gestures in the Vertical Scale to control zooming (this is in addition to the Simple mode commands



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