# Selection Toolbar

### From Audacity Manual

Selection Toolbar includes the Project Rate, Snap To and time selection controls. Using the "Start" and "End/Length" boxes, you can precisely place the cursor point or selection region without using a mouse to click or drag in the waveform, and without zooming in first to find the exact spot.

Selection Toolbar (above) is normally at the bottom of the Audacity window, but like any of the Toolbars, it can be moved as desired by dragging the serrated edge on its left side.

## Project Rate (Hz)

The sample rate for the project, by default this is set to 44100 Hz. To change the default rate that is used each time Audacity is launched, or each time a new project window is opened, use Quality Preferences.

Changing the project rate in Selection Toolbar immediately changes the sample rate at which new tracks will be recorded or generated in the current project, and at which existing tracks will be played, rendered or exported. If the rate you require is not in the drop-down list, you may type the rate you want directly over the currently selected rate.

## Snap To

Check the box Snap To to force-snap the cursor or selection edges to the nearest position of the current Selection Format which can be various time units, samples, audio CD frames or film frames. The default format is hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds (seconds accurate to three decimal places, as in the above image). Mouse clicks snap the cursor to the nearest time unit, sample or media frame in the current format, moving the cursor unless the click is less than half way to the next nearest snap position.

| Even if Snap To is enabled, a track or clip can still be time-shifted to any position and the Tracks > Align Tracks and Tracks > Align and Move Cursor commands will still align to positions outside snap positions for the current format.

For example, six and a half seconds displays as 6.500 seconds. With Snap To checked and the format set to hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds, clicking in-between 6.500 seconds and 6.501 seconds on the Timeline snaps the cursor to the nearest millisecond unit, unless the cursor is already exactly at the nearest millisecond unit relative to the click point.

To snap to whole seconds, change the format to one where the smallest unit is seconds, for example, hours, minutes and seconds (hh:mm:ss).

- Assuming the cursor is currently at other than exactly 2.0 whole seconds, clicking at 2.4 seconds will now snap the cursor to 2.0 seconds, while clicking at 2.8 seconds will snap the cursor to 3.0 seconds.
- Dragging a selection will always snap both selection edges to the nearest whole second. For example, when dragging rightwards on the right edge of a pre-existing selection of 2.3 seconds to 2.6 seconds, the left edge of the selection will jump back at once to 2.0 seconds and the right edge of the selection will jump forwards at once to 3.0 seconds. If you continue to drag the mouse pointer to a little beyond 3.5 seconds, the right edge of the selection will snap to 4.0 seconds.

Snapping to whole seconds could be useful for exporting a selection that needed to be exactly a certain number of seconds, without entering precise values in the Selection Toolbar boxes (which would be another way of ensuring accuracy).

Various types of file frame can be snapped to, including NTSC and PAL. Snapping to film frames can be useful to maintain video and audio synchronization when editing audio from video files.

Keyboard use:

- When Snap To is on you can move the cursor to the preceding or following Snap To position by using keyboard LEFT arrow or RIGHT arrow respectively.
- Similarly you can expand a selection edge to the nearest Snap To position by holding SHIFT and pressing LEFT arrow to move the left edge or RIGHT arrow to move the right edge.
- Contract a selection edge to the nearest Snap To position by holding CTRL and SHIFT then pressing LEFT arrow to contract from the right edge or RIGHT arrow to contract from the left edge.

## Selection and Audio Position Boxes

- Selection Start: If there is no selection, this shows the cursor position.
- (Selection) End/Length: Click the "End" radio button to show the end point of the selection. If there is no selection, the value is the same as the Selection Start. Clicking the "Length" button shows the length of the selection instead (the value shows as zero if there is no selection).
- Audio Position: Displays the current real time position of playback or recording. Editing the values has no effect.

## Editing the Selection Toolbar time digits

You can edit the individual digits representing time or other formats in the "Selection Start" and "End/Length" boxes so as to change the cursor position or selection region on the waveform. Using a mouse, click on a digit in one of the boxes then use the mouse wheel or up and down arrow on the keyboard to increment the value, or type the required value. Use left and right arrow to navigate quickly to adjoining digits, and TAB or SHIFT + TAB to navigate to adjoining boxes.

Selection Toolbar is also fully accessible using only the keyboard. See Audacity Selection for how to use Selection Toolbar with the keyboard.

Selections made by modifying the Selection Toolbar time digits with either keyboard or mouse will always snap to the current Selection Format, even if the Snap To checkbox is unchecked.

## Selection Formats

To access the context menu listing the selection formats, click the triangle to right of any box. You can also select in or right-click over any digit in a box (or use a keyboard equivalent). The following table lists the 16 available formats.

  Selection Format | Example | Notes
  --- | --- | ---
  seconds | 005,408 seconds |
  hh:mm:ss | 01 h 30 m 08 s | Hours, minutes, seconds
  dd:hh:mm:ss | 00 days 01 h 30 m 08 s | Days, hours, minutes, seconds
  hh:mm:ss + hundredths | 01 h 30 m 08.51 s |
  hh:mm:ss + milliseconds | 01 h 30 m 08.512 s | Default
  hh:mm:ss + samples | 01 h 30 m 08 s + 22500 samples |
  samples | 238,514,850 samples |
  hh:mm:ss + film frames (24 fps) | 01 h 30 m 08 s + 12 frames |
  film frames (24 fps) | 129,804 frames |
  hh:mm:ss + NTSC drop frames | 01 h 30 m 08 s + 14 frames | American video format
  hh:mm:ss + NTSC non-drop frames | 01 h 30 m 03 s + 02 frames |
  NTSC frames | 162,092 frames |
  hh:mm:ss + PAL frames (25 fps) | 01 h 30 m 08 s + 12 frames | European video format
  PAL frames (25 fps) | 135,212 frames |
  hh:mm:ss + CDDA frames (75 fps) | 01 h 30 m 08 s + 37 frames |
  CDDA frames (75 fps) | 405,637 frames | Audio CD frames

In the following example we changed the format to samples, which is the most finely detailed format available. All three time selection boxes changed their selection fornat units to the new format.

For the technically minded, assuming the selection above was exactly 30 seconds, 1,323,000 samples are shown because the sample rate of 44100 Hz means there are 44100 audio samples per second. Multiplying (44100) by the length in seconds (30) produces 1,323,000.

| Changing the Selection Format does not change the units displayed on the Timeline. The Timeline is always displayed in hours, minutes, seconds and parts of seconds, varying according to the current zoom level.

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