iLife '04: The Missing Manual

Importing Other Music Files into iTunes

Not all sound files come directly from the compact discs in your personal collection. As long as a file is in a format that iTunes can comprehend (MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, WMA, Apple Lossless, or Audible), you can add it to the iTunes music library by any of several methods.

Note

The AAC format includes a copy-protection feature that MP3 doesn’t have. Songs you buy from the iTunes Music Store and music encoded from your own CDs with iTunes work, but you may have trouble playing or moving other copy-protected AAC files (like those bought from, for example, LiquidAudio.com).

• If menus are your thing, choose File → Add File to Library. In the resulting dialog box (Figure 1-10), locate and click the file you wish to add, or

  

  -click several files to highlight them all at once. Click Choose to bring it, or them, into iTunes.

  

  Figure 1-10. Select the file you’d like to add to your expanding iTunes library with the File → Add File to Library command. If the files you want to add are not in iTunes-friendly formats, you can find scores of shareware on the Web that can convert different audio formats. Some of these sites include MP3 machine (http://www.mp3 machine.com), the Hit Squad (http://www.hitsquad.com), and MP3-Converter (http://www.mp3-converter.com).

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