I have used Audacity to convert my cassettes to Wave Sound (.wav). However Windows Media Player is not able to arrange and display these albums because WAV does not have/use tags. So having tried to find a solution on the internet it seems that i need to convert WAV to FLAC ; then use mp3tag to add tags; then WMP will be able to recognise artist/album etc info and my music will be easy to see/sort/display. My question is can I use Audacity to do this? I use Windows 7.
Why not just use a player that supports tags in WAV files? (for example Foobar2000 http://www.foobar2000.org/ )
Have a look at Help > About Audacity… and make sure you are using the latest Audacity 2.0.5. If not you can get it here http://audacityteam.org/download/windows .
Windows Media Player (at least in Windows 7 and later) supports LIST INFO tags in WAV files, and should see the seven standard WAV tags exported from Audacity 2.0.4 or later. Previous versions of Audacity put a few LIST INFO tags at the top of the file, but Windows could not see them there.
Foobar2000 can’t see LIST INFO tags in WAV but does see ID3 tags in WAV. Audacity 2.0.4 and later export both LIST INFO and ID3 tags in WAV files.
Gale
Thanks for speedy responses Steve & Gale. Steve- I will look at Foobar2000 although I do like the way WMP displays by album and by artist etc (I guess I like the familiar!). Gale - When WMP uses My Music folder it correctly lists ripped cd’s by album and by artist etc. When it reads an album (WAV) that I have converted from a cassette it lists/stores it in Unknown Album; Unknown Artist; Unknown Genre; Unknown Year. So I have a couple of thousand individual tracks sitting in this one place- does that make sense? I assume I have to do something ( convert to FLAC, then add tags) to the music folders in My Music folder before WMP accesses the folder. Can I use audacity to add tags to each album (presumably not because they are WAV). My understanding is that WAV does not allow tags.
“Microsoft WAV” is a type of “RIFF” file. RIFF supports tags, so WAV also support tags. Tags are “allowed”, but are not widely supported in WAV files.
So you used an old version of Audacity to add metadata to these WAV’s, or did not add metadata?
Converting WAV to FLAC will save you space but you will have to add support to WMP for FLAC (and OGG) playback and tagging: http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=93018&view=findpost&p=783359 .
If you are not short of space there is no real need to convert the WAV’s to FLAC. If you have to add the WAV tags manually yes you can add them in Audacity if you use 2.0.4 or later. You can also use dBPowerAmp to tag the files. You don’t then have to load the waveform into Audacity in order to tag, and dBPowerAmp integrates into Explorer so you can display tags in the Explorer columns and file Properties sheets.
Gale
Yes it appears that i used an older version of Audacity but did enter track info via metadata. I have now updated to 2.0.5. Can i use the .aup files within 2.0.5 to add the tags.
If the project contains metadata then you can export to WAV from 2.0.5 and the metadata will be written in both RIFF INFO and ID3 format at the bottom of the file. Windows should see the RIFF INFO tags.
If the project contains multiple Audacity tracks (on top of each other) there is still only one set of metadata. If you used Export Multiple then you can still use the project metadata in conjunction with the labels or the track names to create new files with metadata included.
Gale
I like your original idea of FLAC. 
Tagging is more standardized and your files will be reduced to almost half the size of WAV. Although, you do have to add a CODEC in order to play FLAC on Windows Media Player.
Or just go with MP3 or AAC! Anybody can play MP3 or AAC on any computer or any portable music player, and the tags will work! MP3 and AAC are lossy, but with high quality encoder settings, the quality can be very good (often indistinguishable from the uncompressed original in proper-scientific blind listening tests). And after all, we are talking about digitized analog cassettes which aren’t exactly perfect and nowhere as good as a good MP3 ripped from a CD or other high-quality digital source.
It’s also quite common for people to keep a fully-tagged FLAC (or ALAC) archive and then make MP3s or AACs for everyday or portable use. With a lossless archive you can convert to any lossless or lossy format if your needs change in the future.