Chapter 1. ELAN documents

Table of Contents

Basic Information
Media Files and Annotation Files
Special ELAN data folder
How to start and manage documents
Selecting a user interface language
Creating a new document
Set the author and license information of a document
Synchronizing video files
Opening an existing document
Opening a remote ELAN file (*.eaf
Re-open recently accessed files
Switching between multiple files
Saving a document
Saving a selection as .eaf file
Validating an EAF file
Merging transcriptions
Saving a template
Changing the links to media files
Creating automatic backups
Printing
Configuring the page settings (page setup)
Previewing the printed pages
Opening a wave file in Praat
Exporting a selection to a wave file with Praat
Closing a file
Exiting ELAN
Editing preferences
Import and Export options
Export as
Import from
Screen display and navigation through a document
Basic Information: The ELAN window
The Video Viewer
The Annotation Density Viewer
The Waveform Viewer
The Subtitle Viewer
The Grid Viewer
The Text Viewer
The Lexicon Viewer
The Comments Viewer
The Metadata Viewer
Audio And Video Recognizers
The Timeline Viewer and the Interlinear Viewer
The Tier Name panel
The Timeseries Viewer
The Menu options
The Media Player options
The color coding
Increasing/decreasing the size of the ELAN window
Switching Viewers on/off
Show / Hide Specific Viewers
Increasing/decreasing the size of Viewers
Switching tiers on/off
Rearranging the order of tiers
View tiers by Type/Participant/Annotator
Sorting tiers
Creating and applying tier sets
Changing the time zoom
Changing the vertical (intensity) zoom
Changing the font size
Font Browser
Importing and exporting preferences
Editing shortcuts
How to copy current time of the media
How to navigate through a document
Accessing points in time
Going to the borders of a selection
Jumping step by step through a document
Viewing a list of annotations within one tier (Grid Viewer)
Jumping from annotation to annotation (Interlinear Viewer)
How to play a document
Playing a document
Playing a selection
Playing around a selection
Playing in slow motion
Changing playback rate and volume via the keyboard
Adding comments to .eaf files
Comments setup and settings
Adding, deleting & changing comments
Viewing comments & display options
Filter comments
Other functions
Multiple File Operations
How to select multiple files
Editing multiple files and analysis of multiple files
Multiple file export options
Multiple file import options

Basic Information

Media Files and Annotation Files

Every ELAN project consists of at least two files: one (or more) media file(s), and one annotation file.

  1. One (or more) media file(s):
    • 0 or more video file(s) (*.mpg, *.mp4 etc.)
    • and/or one (or more) audio file(s) (*.wav etc.)

    The video file allows you to view the video and listen to the sound. If you want to view the waveform as well, you might need to create an additional *.wav file through a conversion program that converts the audio data from a video file into a *.wav format. As of version 6.1 for Windows and macOS, attempts are made to show the waveform directly from the audio track of the video (but a *.wav file can still be more accurate and perform better). In the case of multiple video files, the audio of the first selected video file is played (audible). The kind and number of supported video formats depend upon the media framework you are using. If your media framework supports a format, the same goes for ELAN.

    The following media frameworks are known to work:

    Note

    Which frameworks are actually available depends on the ELAN variant and the operating system.

    • Windows (in order of preference, DirectShow/Microsoft Media Foundation being the best solution):
      • JDS (Java Direct Show)

        • Java - Microsoft Media Foundation (.mp4, .m4a,. m4v (win 7 and higher), .wmv, .wma, .asf)

      • JavaFX Media Framework (.mp4, .wav)
      • VLC Player Library (Java wrapper for VLC Player 3.x)
      • Java Sound (.wav)
    • MacOS (in order of preference):
      • Java - AV Foundation Framework
      • JavaFX Media Framework (.mp4, .wav)
      • VLC Player Library (Java wrapper for VLC Player 3.x)
      • Java Sound (.wav)
    • Linux (in order of preference):
      • VLC Player Library (Java wrapper for VLC Player 3.x)
      • JavaFX Media Framework (.mp4, .wav)
      • Java Sound (.wav)

    Note

    • There are several issues with the VLC based player. Depending on the platform options like zooming in or frame stepping might or might not work. Spherical or 360-degree .mp4 videos currently don't work on macOS. It may sometimes be necessary to resize the video area to enforce an update of the video image.
    • For *.mov files (i.e., Cinepak-Quicktime-Movies) it is important that these are self-contained files, i.e., the video information needs to be contained within the *.mov file itself. If this is not the case, ELAN will not be able to display the file.
    • Unlike other media files, the playback rate of Windows Media Audio (WMA) files cannot be altered.
  2. One annotation file:
    • an annotation file created by ELAN ( *.eaf , “EUDICO Annotation Format”)
    • or an imported annotation file. See the Import from section for the supported formats.

    All information (e.g., the tier setup, the time alignment, the annotations) is saved to the annotation file only – never to the media file(s).

    Note

    Take care when editing a media file. Afterwards you probably will want to resynchronize its alignment with the corresponding the annotations, as described in (Synchronizing video files).

    Although it's not compulsory it is a good practice to use a common name for media files and the annotation file. So, it is recommended to use a.eaf next to a.mpg and a.wav.

    Imported files also do not need to have the same name as their media files, and they can be located in different directories. All imported files can ultimately be saved as ELAN files ( *.eaf ).

    All annotation files ( *.eaf ) can be exported as text, FLEx, Toolbox etc.

Special ELAN data folder

ELAN creates a special folder to store settings, preferences and configuration files and to cache content downloaded from internet. The name and location of this folder depends on the operating system:

  • on Windows: <user_home>\.elan_data

    where the <user_home> folder resolves to (depending on the Windows version) something like C:\Users\user_login_name

  • on Linux: <user_home>/.elan_data

    where <user_home> is just the user's home folder

  • on Mac OS X: <user_home>/Library/Preferences/ELAN

    where <user_home> resolves to /Users/user_login_name. To access the Library folder in the Finder you can hold down the Option (Alt) key when clicking the Go menu. Library will then be visible in the list.

Apart from that ELAN expects to find specific files and folders in its installation folder.