How to analyze a sound

[New functionality as of 10/24/2020, please update!!]

Analyzing a sound

Select Sound object in Praat.
Select the "Fast Track > Track Sound..." button. This will open up a menu and an Editor window for that sound.

Determine what you want to track (red arrow, in the figure below). By default, the section selected in the editor window is analyzed (this requires you to select a part before analysis). The entire sound may also be tracked. If an entire sound will be analyzed, make sure there are trackable formants across the whole sound. Please see preparing sounds for more information.
Determine what you want to write out (green arrow). The most useful thing to return are Formant objects, which allow you to edit formant tracks, and Table objects, which allow you to plot your analyses.
Determine your desired analysis settings and hit 'Ok' or 'Apply' (blue arrow). Apply keeps the menu window open for repeated analyses. For more information about analysis settings see this page and this page.

The result is presented in the draw window. Notice that the spectrogram view window is reproduced, and formants are drawn (and estimated) only for the selection.

Plotting a formant track

I want to make a vowel plot from the formant track below:

Select the appropriate Table object in Praat.
Select the "Fast Track > Plot formants..." button (red arrow). This will open up a menu.
Select whether you want to add to a plot or make a new one (green arrow).
Determine your desired settings and hit 'Ok' or 'Apply' (blue arrow). Apply keeps the menu window open for more plotting.

The result is presented in the draw window. Contours are plotted by default, with the arrow indicating motion across time.

Below is a comparison of four ways to plot the above track: Just the means (top left), all individual points (top right), across 2 points in time (bottom left), and across 5 points in time (bottom right).

Tracks can also be added to existing plots. Below, 5 vowels have been plotted:

Data outputs

All outputs are saved to the working directory. Fast Track always saves an image of the analysis (either the final analysis or comparing all potential analyses). Optionally, it can also save:

A Formant object containing the winning formant tracks.
Formant objects representing all alternate analyses.
A CSV file containing formant measurements, predicted formant measurements, formant bandwidths, f0, and intensity measured at each time point.

And return into the Praat object window: