Trimming a recording

Cut a false start or trailing chatter out of a recording and score it again.

Open a reading's report and choose Edit recording. It cuts parts out of the recording — a false start, a cough, or chatter after the reading — and scores the reading again from what is left.

Marking what to remove

The recording is drawn as a waveform. Tap anywhere on it to move the playhead, and play from there.

Two one-tap options cover the common cases: Cut everything before and Cut everything after the point you are at. For something in the middle, tap Start a cut here, play on to where it should end, and tap End the cut here — Cancel this cut abandons one half-marked.

Every cut you mark appears under Parts to remove, where you can delete one, or use Remove all cuts to start over. Cut stretches are drawn faded on the waveform, and New length shows what will be left.

Listen to the result plays the recording as it will be once the cuts are applied. It becomes available as soon as you have marked one.

Saving

Save and score again applies the cuts and re-scores the reading from the shortened audio. It takes a moment and says what it is doing as it goes; at the end it reports the new score.

The reading keeps its identity and its place in your history — only the audio and the score change.

Undoing

The original recording is kept. Undo all edits puts it back and scores the reading again from it, so nothing you do here is final. That button appears once there is a saved original to return to — that is, after your first save.

Who can do it

A Family Manager or Parent can edit any recording in the family, not only their own. A Reader can edit their own.

When it will not let you

• Cutting everything. Zen Reader refuses a set of cuts that would leave nothing, and says so. To get rid of a reading altogether, delete it from its report instead.
• An imported audio file. Recordings made in the app can always be edited; an audio file imported from elsewhere may be in a format that cannot be cut.
• A very old reading. Readings marked letter by letter by an earlier version of the app cannot be edited or scored again.