iTunes: General overview of Preferences

If you select "Preferences" from the iTunes drop down menu,

 

You will see several tabs that allow you to personalize your preferences.

These are "General," "Audio," "Importing," "Burning," "Sharing," "Store," and "Advanced"

If you click on "General," one important option you have is to decide what you want iTunes to do when you insert a CD. iTunes can show the songs that are on the CD for you, play the songs on the CD, import the songs for you, or import the songs then automatically eject the CD when importing is complete. This is useful for importing your music library.

 

If you click on the "Audio" tab, you have the option to change some of your audio settings.

 

By clicking on the "Importing" tab, you have the option of importing music with several different encoders.



The AAC Encoder is the smallest file size.
The MP3 Encoder is the next smallest and most popular.
Apple LossLess Encoder is half the size of raw audio but with no loss of quality.
AIFF and WAV encoders are raw audio.
Note: You lose quality when you compress music; however, AAC has better quality than MP3 and you will notice this is the default setting.

Clicking on the "Burning" tab provides several options.

If you are trying to save space on the CD or want continuous play, you can change the Gap time between songs.



You can also choose the "Disc Format."
An Audio CD fits about 17 songs.
An MP3 fits about 200 songs, but won't play in a Standard CD player. This option is great for transferring songs to another computer.

Selecting the "Sharing" tab, you can customize your options for sharing music on a local network. See the "Sharing Music" heading for more information.

 

By clicking on the "Store" tab, you can change your settings for the iTunes Music Store. See the "iTunes Music Store" heading for more information.

 

Last, by selecting the "Advanced" tab, you have the option of changing settings that affect the location of the iTunes folder on your computer, shuffling, and organization of your iTunes music folders.




Further information and support can be found by selecting "Help", then "iTunes and Music Store Help"



Online movie tutorials at http://www.apple.com/support/itunes

Apple has its own article on this which can be found at http://www.apple.com/itunes