# Importing and Exporting Labels

### From Audacity Manual

Label Tracks can be exported to, and imported from plain text files ( .txt extension in Windows). The file structure is a tab-delimited plain text format that can be opened by any text editor or spreadsheet program and edited there.

The format looks like this:

    `0.450000 → 0.450000 → point label
    `
    1.400000 → 3.100000 → region label
    4.150000 → 4.150000 → Question 1
    5.700000 → 5.700000 → Answer 1
    8.100000 → 8.100000 → Question 2
    9.800000 → 9.800000 → Answer 2

The first column has the start time in seconds, the second column has the end time, and the third column has the name of the label. Start time and end time are identical for a point label. Values are separated by tab characters (which will often appear as an arrow in text editors, as shown above).

Sometimes it may be useful to use these labels in another program (for example if somebody wanted to know the time where each piece of an interview starts or stops), or to import a labels file that someone has shared with you.

You can export labels using the Edit Labels editor window, or by choosing File > Export Labels.... By default the exported file has the same name as the current name of the label track. If there are multiple label tracks, the labels of all those tracks are combined into a single label track in the exported file, which by default has the same name as the current name of the last label track.

Labels can be imported using the Edit Labels editor window, or by choosing File > Import > Labels.... Imported label tracks are added to the bottom of all existing track types in the project, just as when you import an audio track.

| If you import labels created by some application other than Audacity, make sure the application supports UTF-8, otherwise accented or any other non-Latin characters may cause the file not to import. If you use a Windows application to create the file, you may have to use "Save As" and look for a specific option that saves with UTF-8 encoding.

|< Label Tracks

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