A friend has sent me via Sendit compression, a lecture in MP3 file format and this is 53.1 Mb which of course will not fit on to one audio disc. I would like to put this on to two discs therefore and play it in an ordinary CD player. Is this possible?

Are you right about that file size? The capacity of a CD is 650MB. Anyway, there are a number of utilities that can do this if needed. Some are free. I can't recommend any because I've never tried them. However, the operation is known as 'file spanning'. So, if you type the term 'spanning files CD' (or similar) into a search engine, some entries will come up. I'm not suggesting that any downloads might be risky but don't forget to scan them for malware before installation. Just good practice.

I note you want the file on CDs but it would fit onto a DVD (4.7GB) if that could be an option.

I think that is the size YouSendIt sent. I know the lecture lasts one and a half hours. Will look up the options. Many thanks.

Looked at it again. It lists as 54378Kb and arrived as 53.1Mb MP3 file from YouSendIt which I think is a service which compresses large files for emails.
Every burn option I find says it is too large for one disc and will not offer to copy and then ask for another disc, but as above, I will investigate further.

Since you are obviously trying to make an audio disc (a direct file copy as data would easily fit), you will not be able to burn that file unchanged. If you want to stick with an audio CD, your best option would be to download a simple freeware sound editing program, cut the file into two halves, save them separately and then burn each to a disc. Pretty much any audio editor will do, just when you cut either make sure you do cut between sentences (listen to the passage where you intend to cut) or leave yourself a few seconds of overlap so that you will be able to follow the lecture's content across the disc change.

Thank you for your replies. Is there a freeware editor you could recommend, and I will have a go.

I found one previously through tucows.com. I'm sure any shareware/freeware site will have a few.

Try Audacity - very nice sound editing software.

For Audio conversions & CD Authoring try CDEX or Audiograbber.

I use Audiograbber - it's fairly easy to figure out.

I found a program which split the file into two parts but when I tried to burn, it said the format was wrong! I have not changed the MP3 format, so I am stumped again....

To play mp3's on an audio cd player you need to convert them to .wav format.

download and install cdex

open cdex

press F12 (function key 12)

now you need to select one or both parts of your split mp3 file. To do this find the directory they are contained in by clicking on directory button '...' just below the close window 'X'. Once you have selected file(s) click convert.

Now the original files will be converted and put into a directory off mydocuments/mymusic/mp3 (if not here, goto 'options' then settings in cdex and locate path 'mp3 to wav')

Now they should be ready to burn to cd! if your using windows xp or vista just put in blank cd add file(s) to cd folder, you should see an option burn files to cd on the right.

Yes, he has now sent the lectures in parts 1 and 2 so that the file doesn't need splitting, and these are in .aiff format rather than MP3, so I suppose I have to convert the .aiff to .wav and then try to burn.

Life is never simple is it?

Use this

http://www.sonicspot.com/aifftowave/aifftowave.html