How do I delete a number of bars (across all tracks) within a song and close the gap?

[21tones]

When importing an old Tracktion 2 project to work on in Waveform 11 I found that all the tracks started at bar 9, rather than bar 5. This put them out of sync with my drum track programmed in Jamstix. I want to cut out bars 5 to 9, so that all of the audio and midi tracks starting at 9 move to start at bar 5.
I can't work out how to do this looking at the manual.
Can anyone help?
Also, in trying to solve this problem I tried pulling the audio on multiple tracks forward to bar 5 and made an almighty mess! All the tracks are now out of sync with each other.
Is there any way to go back to the state the project was in when it was imported?
When I click on delete project it says all the associated files will be deleted. I don't want that!

Thanks in advance for any help

[Macton]

You can delete selected sections and close the gap using ctrl+j.

[Dark Lane]

... and if you have Auto Backup switched on, you may be able to restore the first autobackup file from when you created the edit. This will create a new edit and leave your current edit unchanged so you can compare the two to see what the differences are.

[21tones]

Thank you Macton and Dark Lane for your helpful responses.
I am away from home for a couple of days so won't get a chance to
try these suggestions until I get home but look forward to doing so.
Macton - how did you know how to use ctrl+j?

[Macton]

You can see all of the keyboard shortcuts here:
Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts

[21tones]

Dark Lane - thanks for your suggestion. Unfortunately, restoring to the first autobackup file was after I had messed things up, rather than the file as it was when I imported it before making any changes.
I have got round that problem by deleting the messed up edit and project and reimporting the original project.
However, I have been trying to cut out the blank 4 bar section I want to delete using Macton's suggestion, having positioned the IN/OUT markers , but I can't seem to select all the tracks in that section. That might be because they don't have any clips on them within the marked 4 bar section? I'm still struggling to delete these blank 4 bars and close the gap to bring all the audio and midi clips forward and keep them aligned with each other.
Any further help much appreciated.
Thanks

[Watchful]

Once you set your in and out markers, all you do next is click the first track, on the left, to select that track.

It should highlight in red, horizontally from left to right.

Then, SHIFT + CLICK down at the bottommost track and you'll select them all.

Ctrl + J and it's done!

Note: the advantage to this method (about the only one I can think of) is you can CTRL + Click tracks you *don't* want to delete and close up... which can be helpful if you're deleting percussion parts across various tracks but want to otherwise leave your music tracks alone.

[21tones]

Watchful - thanks for that. It worked perfectly.
However, the song section markers are now out of sync throughout the song!
I've looked in the user guide but can't find a way to actually move them, so I ended up deleting them
and creating new ones in the appropriate places.
Thanks again

[asprog]

If you just want to delete 4 bars of your entire edit, you can use the "Delete time at marked region" action (no default keyboard shortcut applied but you can apply one).
Set your in and out markers, no need to select tracks. And markers stay in sync.

[21tones]

asprog - thanks for this. I found it eventually and it works. The difficulty I have with some of those keyboard shortcuts and actions is that I'm not really sure what it is going to do from the brief description that is given, and don't want to mess things up by trying something that doesn't do what I think it might!
But thanks again