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:
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.
In a similar way you can paste these annotations from the clipboard into ELAN:
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:
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).
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.
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
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
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.
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.
The process of copying multiple annotations from one tier to another is described in the Copying annotations from one tier to another tier section.