Copy and paste annotations

Copy annotation

Just like in many other applications, you can reuse elements you are editing with the well-known copy and paste operations. To copy an annotation do the following:

  1. Select the annotation
  2. Right click on it and select Copy Annotation, select the same option in the Annotation drop-down menu or press CTRL+C

It is possible to customize what is placed to the clipboard when copying an annotation in the Editing preferences window (Editing panel, bullet point 9). This is especially relevant when pasting annotations in other applications than ELAN. It is e.g. possible to copy the annotation value only or to copy a citation form that includes the media file name and tier name etc.

Paste annotation

In a similar way you can paste these annotations from the clipboard into ELAN:

  1. Go to the tier where you want to paste the annotation
  2. Select Annotation > Paste Annotation or press CTRL+V

Note

Annotations can only be pasted onto tiers of the same tier type! If you want to copy the annotation to a tier of a different type, use Duplicate Annotation (see Duplicate annotation).

Please note that pasting an annotation can result in different behavior according to the context:

  • By default the annotation is pasted onto the tier where it originates from.
  • If that is impossible (i.e. there is no tier with the same name as the originating tier, e.g. in another file) the copy of the annotation will be placed on the active tier (see Make a tier the active tier on how to activate a tier)

However, pasting an annotation will never change the time alignment of that annotation unit. This means that the annotation will be placed on exactly the same time as it was found when the copy operation was performed. If you want to change its timing, move it afterwards or use the Paste annotation here option (see Paste annotation here).

Paste annotation here

Using this function (Annotation > Paste annotation here or press CTRL+SHIFT+V) you can copy an existing annotation to any tier and time you want. (Of course the tier still has to belong to the same tier type). The copy will be placed on the position of the crosshair on the active tier.

Right click somewhere in the timeline viewer and select Paste annotation here from the context menu to copy the annotation to the position of the mouse cursor – both the tier and the time position.

Copy and paste annotation groups

When copying and pasting annotations, only the selected annotation will be copied and pasted. If you want the annotation including all its child annotations (those on the dependent tiers) to be transferred, select

  • Copy Annotation Group, accessed via the main menu item Annotation or in the context menu (opened by right clicking), and
  • Paste Annotation Group, via the main menu item Annotation or Paste Annotation Group here via the main menu or the context menu.

Pasting all annotations in a copied annotation group only works if the tier structure (the dependent tiers and their tier types) of the source is the same as the tier structure of the destination. Or alternatively, the source and destination should follow the same naming convention. An example in which the destination follows the same naming convention is shown in

Figure 2.112. Copying a annotation group

Copying a annotation group

The annotations from the tiers labelled W-RGU, W-RGph and W-RGMe were copied by Copy Annotation Group. Then they were pasted on the tier labelled M-RGU. Since that tier and the tiers labelled M-RGph and M-RGMe follow the same naming convention as the source tiers (the suffixes match) the annotation group could be pasted on the three target tiers M-RGU, M-RGph and M-RGMe. Note that the tier structure of the target tiers is different from that of the source tiers.


Duplicate annotation

Select an annotation and make the tier where you want it to be duplicated the active tier. Now select Annotation > Duplicate Annotation or press CTRL+D to create an exact copy of the annotation onto the active tier. This function also works for tiers that don't share the tier type.

Copy all annotations from one tier to another.

The process of copying multiple annotations from one tier to another is described in the Copying annotations from one tier to another tier section.

Synopsis

Figure 2.113. Synopsis copy and paste annotations

Synopsis copy and paste annotations