Preparing to burn a diskWhen starting a new project, you should ensure that K3b has detected the correct optical media, such as CD or DVD. On the status line at the bottom of the screen you should see the size of disk which is currently set. If this is not correct, or you require a different size, simply right-click on it and set the preferred size from the provided list:
Now choose what is to be burnt.
The top half of the screen is the source pane; it functions like a file manager. You can choose ordinary files from mounted data volumes or audio tracks from inserted audio discs. Names of audio tracks are automatically read from CD-Text data, if your CD drive supports reading it, or generated using CDDB; the exact format is controlled by a button in the bottom pane. If the names are incorrect or simply do not match the description of the disc, you can edit them using the toolbar button. Your changes will be cached locally and submitted to the master registry at FreeDB.
Tip
If the whole record is performed by the same artist, leave the track artist entries blank, fill the Album artist, save to CDDB and requery.
Now that you have your sources at hand, simply drag and drop the files and directories you wish to burn onto the large pane to the right at the bottom; this is the model pane. Behold a tree of your chosen files forming to the left. Should there be some files or directories which you do not want to burn, these can be easily removed from the project by simply removing them from the panel at the bottom. Select the file to be removed (you can control-click to select multiple ones), then choose Remove from the context menu.
Tip
If you need to compress audio, create a new audio CD project, add the files to be converted and press the button Convert Tracks. This will not affect the contents of the CD if you decide to burn it; however, you will be able to use the compressed files elsewhere. Make sure the original files are lossless (wav or FLAC), otherwise the result will be unsatisfactory.
The top line will be the title of the disk. In many cases this will be fine, but if you would like to change this to something else, simply rename it using the context menu.