Audacity Forum

How do I activate the Effect Menu? All items are greyed out. I want to remove clicks from vinyl records, and can't do it.
It says to select the audio and then do it. What audio CAN I select, the raw data, wav files or MP3 files?
Is it done during recording or later?

1) Open Audacity
2) Import your audio file (WAV or MP3 - Windows Media files are not supported, neither are iTunes AAC files).
3) Select the audio by one of the following methods:
Ctrl+A (select All)
Click just below the name of the track, just above the "solo" and "mute" buttons (selects the complete track)
Left-Click on the track and drag across the track (selects part of the track)
4) Effects menus are now available

Edit and process your audio as required, then
5) Export your finished audio as either WAV or MP3
6) (Optional) "Save" your Audacity project for later use - note that this will create a project file AND a data folder. Both parts are needed for Audacity projects.

For a general guide to using Audacity, check out some of the tutorials:
http://audacityteam.org/manual-1.2/tutorials.html
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Tutorials