getting itunes to import multiple artists CDs as one album

I think you do a +Get Info+ on each song on the album. On the Info tab, after making sure the Album entry is the same for all the songs, check the box at the bottom that says +Part of a compilation+.

The check box next to the song name has nothing to do with it. That's for telling iTunes if you want to play the song or include the song in a sync to the iPod, stuff like that...

If the album entry is the same, but the artist is different, they will show up listed separately if you have the list sorted +by Artist+ (because it is sorting the list by artist name). If you change the sorting to be +by Album+, then all of the songs in the album will be listed together, listed in +Track #+ order. You change the sorting by clicking on the header of each column. Click it a second time to reverse the order.

Make sure all of the Album fields for all the songs in that album have the exact same entry. Even something small like an extra space or an accented letter would give you two different albums in cover flow view. The difference may not even by something that is visible. So it you be best to select all the songs in the album, do a +Get Into+, and retype the album name so that the exact same entry is applies to all the songs at once.

If the album name is the exact same, and the songs are listed consecutively on the list, there should only be one coverflow image for that set of songs.

Are you saying that you clicked on the column heading that says Album ? The column heading turned blue (a grayish blue).

At this point you are sorting by Album. If all the songs have the exact same entry for Album, they should be grouped together, because iTunes is sorting based on the album entry for each song.

So look at the column headings in list view. Tell me which one is currently blue.

FYI - You can sort by any of the columns by clicking on the column header; click on it again to reverse the sort order. You can also change the columns you see in the list view by right-clicking in the column area (there are more columns than what is shown by default). You can change the location of the column on the list by dragging the column heading left or right of the current position.

Are there any online data bases for lyrics & cover art that can put into my library?

I don't know of any consolidated database. I usually go to the artist's web site for lyrics, and album art (if iTunes did not have it available for the automatic download). For album art, I also use Amazon.com. The +show enlarged view+ image is about the right size to use as iTunes album art.

Album art is stores in two ways. The +Get Album Artwork+ method puts the album artwork into a special database that iTunes maintains. There is no way for the user to manipulate this database. If you want to get rid of the downloaded artwork, select a song or set of songs, right click on it or them, and select +Clear Downloaded Artwork+. The downloaded artwork for that song or those songs will be gone.

The other method is for you to add the artwork manually. To do this, select a song or set of songs. You can drag the image file of the album art and drop it into the area of the iTunes window below the sidebar on the left side (where the artwork is usually displayed). You can also open the +Get Info+ window for a song, and drop the image onto the Artwork tab. This method adds the image to each music file, so it makes the music file bigger. Instead of being stored once per album, it is stored once per song file, so it is not as space efficient as the automated database method. To get rid of an image added manually, open click on the image in +Get Info+ window Artwork tab, and click the Delete button.

I believe the manually added image overrides the image in the automated database. So if you add album art manually to a song that already has a downloaded image, your manually added image will be used.

The iPod is a mirror of your iTunes library, so any change you make to the iTunes library should be synced to the iPod at the next opportunity.

... which were ripped with windows media player, can I just import these or do I have to re rip the albums in itunes?

I think we discussed how to put your existing files into iTunes, in your other topic thread. Was there anything from that topic thread that was not clear or did not work? If they are MP3 (not WMA) format, they should work find, at least for playing. Whether the tags are consistent with what iTunes expects, that depends on how your previous encoder did that job. I have seen files (encoded by who knows what) where all of the information about the song/artist/album were all part of a really long file name, instead of being embedded separately into the file.

I tried this, but when I sort by album, the tracks are not listed in order. I've checked the info tab and verified that there is a number populated in the "x of y" boxes. FOr instance, I have a soundtrack with multiple artists, some artists have more than one track. When I sort by album in list view, all tracks are grouped, but then subcategorized by artist. In cover flow view, there is a cover for each artist on the same album. In grid view--sorted by album--there are multiple album covers, again subcategorized by artis. I've read the history on this thread, but I still can't seem to condense the soundtrack into one album.

ok, I think I may have just solved my problem--hope this helps others...to condense multiple artist CDs--such as soundtracks--into one album, select all songs/artists from the album, update the INFO tab ALBUM ARTIST field to reflect "various artists" and hit "ok" (the ARTIST field can still reflect the individual artist). Wahla! No more multiple entries for a multiple artist CD.