PC help: Lame Audacity?

Q I would like to use the audio-editing software program Audacity to edit my podcasts and save them as MP3 files. Unfortunately, the Export as MP3 option in the File menu does not work because there is no encoder installed. Where can I get one from?
Ken Stalker

A The MP3 encoder is the software used to create an MP3 file from the audio saved by Audacity. Licensing and copyright reasons mean it is not supplied with Audacity but it can be downloaded free here. There should be no problems using MP3 files for personal non-commercial uses.

Click on the link ‘libmp3lame-win-3.97.zip’ in the section with the heading For Audacity 1.2.6 and 1.3.3 on Windows. It is only 153KB and should take no more than 30 seconds to download, even on a dial-up modem. Click on the Open button when the download has finished and extract the lame_enc.dll file into the folder where Audacity is located. If you have no other software for opening zip files, this will be done with the Windows Compressed Folders software. Double-click on the folder called libmp3lame-3.97 and then left-click on the Extract all files to start the Extraction wizard. Click on Next and then on Browse.

Locate the folder where Audacity is installed by clicking on the small plus symbols next to the following folders: My Computer, Local Disk (C:), Program Files, Audacity. Click on OK, then Next. There is no need to view the extracted files, so uncheck ‘Show extracted files’ and click on Finish.

Start Audacity, click on the Edit menu, then on Preferences. Left-click the File Formats tab, then on Find Library. Click Yes in the message box that appears, then on ‘find the file that was just saved’. Click on OK to save the changes.