Keywords: audiobook, multi-disc CD, merge CD

FREE: MergeCDs takes all of the tracks from a multi-CD collection and stores them as one sequence of tracks. It does not read the CDs directly, instead you use Windows Media Player to rip (copy) the CDs to your computer's music library in .mp3 format. Then MergeCDs will read the MP3 files from several source folders (one for each disc in the collection) and copy them into a single, new folder.

In fact, it is a little more complex than that, but most of the details are probably of no concern to you. The main thing is that MergeCDs modifies the track number stored within each MP3 file so that they are in sequential order. This ensures that the tracks (chapters of the book, or music tracks) will play in the correct order--as long as you have "shuffle" on your player turned off, that is. For example, in an audio book with five CDs, each containing ten tracks, the track numbers on each CD will run from one to ten. After merging these with MergeCDs, you will have a single group of 50 tracks with track numbers that run from one to 50. The newly created folder will be the same as the first folder (minus any disc number, if any) followed by "_1" to distinguish it from the first folder.