How to start and manage documents

To start ELAN, do the following:

  1. Double-click on the ELAN icon (on your desktop, in the Start menu or in the Dock).

    The initially empty window is displayed in which you can open different kinds of documents.

  2. Click on the File menu (see Figure 1.1, “File menu”).

    The main options in the File menu for creating or opening a file are:

    Figure 1.1. File menu

    File menu


  3. Click on:
    • Open... in case you want to open an ELAN file (*.eaf) (Opening an existing document)
    • New... in case you want to open a media file in ELAN (e.g. *.mp4, *.mpg, *.wav). This is not for opening an existing annotation file (*.eaf) (Creating a new document).
    • Import and then on one of the formats listed in the submenu (Import from).

    Other dialog windows will appear and prompt you to enter the names and locations of the different files. Then the ELAN window appears and displays the selected files.

Once you have started ELAN and opened a document, use the File menu to open, create or import a second document. When done with a document use Close (Closing a file) to close it or Exit (Exiting ELAN) to close all files and exit ELAN.

Selecting a user interface language

Elan supports various user interface languages. You can set an interface language at any given time. To do so, choose Options > Language and select one of the available languages.

Note

The selected Language does not influence the content of the produced or edited *.eaf files in any way.

At present Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, English, French ,German, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Korean language modules are available. However, new languages can be easily added. If you want to provide a translation for a different language, please contact the ELAN development team.

Alternatively, you can immediately incorporate a new translation as follows. In the directory locale under the directory where ELAN is installed, you will find the files ElanLanguage.properties and SearchLanguage.properties. These files can be used as a basis for your translation. Copy the files to the directory .elan_data (Linux and Windows) or Library/Preferences/ELAN (on Mac OS) in your home directory and simply edit the entries in the files. To view the result of the translation, click Options > Language and select Custom.

Creating a new document

In case you have a media file but no annotation file (*.eaf, *.txt, *.trs), click on File > New. Next, a New Transcription dialog window (see Figure 1.2, “The New Transcription dialog window: media”) will be displayed, e.g.:

Figure 1.2. The New Transcription dialog window: media

The New Transcription dialog window: media

Do the following:

  1. Click on the Look in pull down box (on the top left of the window) and browse to the directory that contains the media files.
  2. If you want to use media files of another type (e.g. QuickTime *.mov) then select All Files, or one of the other format filters, in the Files Format dropdown menu. Whether or not a media type is supported depends on your software configuration.
  3. Double-click on a displayed media file (e.g. pear.wav) (*.mp4, *.mpg, *.wav, etc.) to select it. It now appears in the rightmost box. Alternatively, you can click on the media file name and click on the >> button afterwards.
  4. If you want to use a predefined set of tiers (a template), select the Template radio button and choose the template (i.e. *.etf) to be used:

    Figure 1.3. The New Transcription dialog window: templates

    The New Transcription dialog window: templates

  5. Beside media files on disk you can also add a remote file over e.g. the HTTP(S), RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol ) or any other protocol a media player framework might support. Click on Add Remote File... and enter or paste the full URL of the remote media. Click on OK.
  6. Click OK to open the new annotation document; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog window without creating a new file.

    An ELAN window containing the new document appears.

Note

The actual appearance of the window(s) shown for starting a new transcription can differ considerably depending on the operating system.

Alternatively, you can start a new project by simply opening ELAN. Instead of choosing File > New, just browse to the files you wish to work with from within your explorer (e.g. the Finder in OSX, or Windows explorer), select them all and then drag n' drop them onto the ELAN main window. A new transcription will be opened containing the selected media-files.

Set the author and license information of a document

An ELAN document can have an author. To set the author, click Edit > Set Author.... Enter the name of the author and click OK. It is also possible to add information concerning the license policy or policies that apply to the document, click Edit > Document Properties...

Figure 1.4. Document properties window

Document properties window


A License can consist of a URL, a license text or both. Multiple Licenses can be specified.

  • The New and Remove buttons allow to add a new license or remove an existing license
  • The Import button opens a file dialog to select a file from which the text will be read and copied
  • The Default button shows a list of more or less standard licenses (Creative Commons, GNU) to choose from

Synchronizing video files

Sometimes one has two or more video files of the same recorded scene, e.g. when 2 different cameras were used. In that case it may happen that both recordings don’t start exactly at the same moment. In order to fix this, one should synchronize the videos. Synchronizing is the process of working out the gap (offset) between the start times. When played together, the start point of the earlier source is shifted forwards to this offset. This can be done in two different ways:

- If you know the amount of offset for a video, you can enter it by activating the Linked Files dialog window (via Edit > Linked files…

Figure 1.5. Synchronizing video files: Enter offset in 'Linked Files'

Synchronizing video files: Enter offset in 'Linked Files'


Double-click the offset time for the video you want to alter and enter it in milliseconds. Click Apply to save.

- If you do not know the offset time, please follow these steps to synchronize your videos:

  1. Open a new document with 2 (or more) video files by selecting both files in the New Transcription dialog window (as seen above).
  2. Select the pull down menu Options > Media Synchronization Mode.
  3. Make a choice about how the time codes should be displayed:
    1. Absolute Offsets: for every video its own timing is being shown.
    2. Relative Offsets: the video of player 1 is appointed to be the “master”, i.e. the time position of the other videos will be determined as starting point of this file, which starts at 00:00:00.000.
  4. Select the radio button Player 1. You can now choose a moment in the video which is easy to calibrate (some clear anchor point, in both of the videos). For instructions how to navigate through the video file, see How to navigate through a document.

    Figure 1.6. Synchronizing video files: Offset of player 1

    Synchronizing video files: Offset of player 1

  5. Now select Player 2 and go to the same calibration point.

    Note

    See Changing the links to media files for changing the order of the videos, i.e. the order of appearing in Player 1, Player 2, etc.

    Figure 1.7. Synchronizing video files: Offset of player 2

    Synchronizing video files: Offset of player 2

  6. Finally, choose Apply Current Offset. By selecting the play button both videos will be played together now, so you can check if the synchronization between them is correct. If not, please repeat step 3-5 until the result is satisfactory.
  7. Leave the synchronization mode by selecting Options > Annotation Mode. Now you are ready to start entering annotations.
  8. By double clicking on a video, it will be placed in the leftmost video window (which is also the biggest one in case there are 3 videos).

    Note

    If you changed the media file synchronization of a file that already is annotated, you might want to move the annotation units all together to the right (later, positive value) or to the left (earlier, negative value) on the time axis. This can be done using the Annotation > Shift all annotations … menu (see also Activating and deactivating the Bulldozer mode or Shift mode):

    Figure 1.8. Shift all annotations

    Shift all annotations

This process won't delete any annotation. If the annotations are shifted to the left, the maximum shift will be restricted by the leftmost annotation unit.

Opening an existing document

In case you have an ELAN file (*.eaf) of a media file (*.mp4, *.mpg, *.wav etc.), click Open in the File menu.

The Open dialog window will be displayed:

Figure 1.9. Open dialog window

Open dialog window

Do the following:

  1. Browse to the directory that contains the ELAN file (*.eaf).
  2. Double-click on the annotation file to open it.

    An ELAN window containing the document will appear.

Alternatively, instead of clicking File Open, you can drag and drop an *.eaf file directly from your file-explorer (E.g. Finder in OSX or Windows explorer) onto the ELAN main screen. The document will open and an ELAN window with the document will appear.

You can only open files of the ELAN annotation format (*.eaf). If you try to open a file of a different format, the following error message will appear:

Figure 1.10. Error message: no eaf file

Error message: no eaf file

Note

If ELAN cannot find the associated media files (*.mpg, *.mpeg, *.mp4, *.mov, *.wav etc.), it will check if these files exist in the directory of the *.eaf file. If they are still not found there, it will ask you where the media files are located.

Figure 1.11. Locate media file

Locate media file

Opening a remote ELAN file (*.eaf

To open an existing ELAN file which is available online, at an accessible remote location, select File > Open Remote File... and enter or paste the address or URL in the box that appears.

Figure 1.12. Open remote file

Open remote file

Click OK to open the file. Due to network latency opening a remote file can take considerably longer than opening a local file.

Re-open recently accessed files

A convenient way to reopen a file that you have previously been working on is the File > Open Recent File dropdown menu. The maximun number of files shown in the list, can be set in the User Interface panel of the Edit Preferences window (See Editing preferences).

Switching between multiple files

If you open up several annotation files, you can get an overview of the currently opened documents under the Window dropdown menu:

Figure 1.13. Windows dropdown menu

Windows dropdown menu

Click on one of the files to select it. Or use the keyboard shortcuts SHIFT+DOWN or SHIFT+UP to activate the next or previous window in the list.

Saving a document

All documents can be saved as ELAN files (*.eaf, ELAN Annotation Format). This includes documents that were created by ELAN itself (see Creating a new document) as well as documents that were imported into ELAN from Shoebox/Toolbox, CHAT, Transcriber etc.(see Import from). To save a document as an ELAN file:

  1. Either use the menu options:
    1. Click on File menu.
    2. Click on Save or Save as.
  2. Or use the shortcut key CTRL+S.

Note

Apart from the *.eaf file, a *.pfsx file will be written as well. This file contains user- and document- specific settings like the font size used to display text. The *.pfsx file can, however, be safely removed as it does not contain any annotation data.

You also can save in .eaf version 2.7 This is the old version of .eaf (prior to ELAN 4.7) If you have used the controlled vocabularies for instance in ELAN 4.7, and save to eaf version 2.7, you may lose some information (colors may not be remembered for instance).

Saving a selection as .eaf file

Apart from saving a whole document you can also store the contents of a certain time span to an .eaf file, using the following steps:

Figure 1.14. Save selection as .eaf file

Save selection as .eaf file

Note

If annotation units overlap with the selection, they will be shrunk until they fit within the selected interval.

Figure 1.15. Save As Dialog

Save As Dialog

  1. Enter a file name for the new *.eaf.
  2. Check Clip media for the selection using the script to also clip the media for the selection made and link the new clipped media in the new *.eaf file. (For more details on clipping the media see Media clip using script .)
  3. Click on save to create a new *.eaf file.

Validating an EAF file

Sometimes a file won't open or behaves strangly when edited. Although there might be messages in the log file, it is often unclear what the problem is. It is possible to validate an *.eaf file and receive a report of errors found. This process performs an XML validation and additionally checks the file for the most common other errors encountered in *.eaf files. To start the process:

  1. Choose File > Validate EAF File...
  2. In the Open dialog select the file to check and click Open
  3. A small progress indicator will be shown
  4. Finally a window displaying the process report appears:

    Figure 1.16. Validation report window

    Validation report window

  5. The report can be saved as a text file

Not all possible errors are detected, just the most common ones:

  • consistency of a tier's type and its place in a tier hierarchy
  • consistency of tier type and type of annotations (alignable or reference)
  • consistency of several annotation properties (time slot references, validity of time values, overlapping annotations etc.)
  • some controlled vocabulary properties

Errors in the file are not repaired by this process; if the file still opens in ELAN, it might be possible to apply the necessary changes, otherwise the file might need to be corrected in a text- or XML-editor.

Merging transcriptions

Under some circumstances it might be useful to combine the contents of two separate transcription files into a single one. To achieve this, follow these steps:

  1. Choose File > Merge Transcriptions
  2. A dialog window appears:

    Figure 1.17. Merge transcriptions dialog window

    Merge transcriptions dialog window

  3. If one of the files to be merged is currently opened, select Use current transcription. Otherwise choose Browse… and select the first *.eaf file.
  4. Choose the second file by clicking the Browse... button.
  5. Check Append Annotations to choose one of the options below. Otherwise the annotations will be added to the very left of the first *.eaf file (i.e. as a result the second file's annotations are followed by the first file's annotations).
    • Select after the media in first source file to append the annotations of the second file after the media duration of the first *.eaf file.
    • Select after the last annotation in the first source file to append the annotations of the second file after the end time of the last annotation of the first *.eaf file (please note, the last annotation does not always end at the time the video file ends but can occur before that time).
    • Select after the given time position to append the annotations of the second file after a provided point of time in the first *.eaf file (hence after a given time position).
  6. Check Add linked media and secondary files if you would like to add the media files from the second source to the list of linked files from the first source. This is helpful if you are merging two different projects which contain different media files.
  7. Enter a file name for the result of the merge operation.
  8. Click on Next. A Merge Transcriptions dialog window will appear:

    Figure 1.18. Merge transcriptions dialog window

    Merge transcriptions dialog window

    The tiers of the first source are shown as a reference; these don't have to be selected because the first source is always copied completely. The sort buttons allow to list the tiers alphabetically, ascending or descending. The second list shows the tiers of the second source. They can be selected individually or all at once through the Select All button. This list of tiers can be sorted as well, independently of the tiers of the first source.

  9. Select the tiers of the second source file that you want to merge with the first file.
  10. If there are common tiers (tiers with the same name) in both files and you want to allow annotations of the second file to overwrite those of the first, make sure Allow existing annotations to be overwritten is checked. If this option is not checked, only those annotations of the second source will be added to the tier in the first source, that do not overlap any existing annotations.
  11. If there are tiers with the same name in both files and you don't want to merge those tiers, you can select the Merge transcripts without overwriting existing tiers option. The tiers from the second source will then be copied with a suffix added to the name. E.g. if there is a tier named Event in both files, the tier from the second source will be copied as Event-1 (continuing numbering until a unique name is found).
  12. Click on Finish to start merging.
  13. When the merge procedure has been finished you can choose whether to open the result immediately in a new ELAN window:

    Figure 1.19. Open new transcription

    Open new transcription

Saving a template

A template offers the possibility to reuse the same document setup for more than one media file. This includes:

Saving a template is done as follows:

  1. Click on File menu.
  2. Click on Save as Template…
  3. Choose a file name ending in .etf
  4. Click on Save

See Creating a new document for instructions on using a template.

When saving a template a preferences file is created alongside of it. This preferences file will be used when a new document is created on the basis of the template.

Changing the links to media files

As from ELAN version 2.4, the possibility exists to explicitly change the links to media files that are linked from an *.eaf file. This option can be handy if, for instance, you have moved media files to another location after the last time you edited an ELAN file.

Activating the Linked Files dialog window (via Edit > Linked files…) will get you the following screen:

Figure 1.20. Linked files dialog window

Linked files dialog window

The following options are available on the Linked Media Files tab:

  • Add…: add a link to a new media file from the current *.eaf file.
  • Remove: remove the selected media file.
  • Update…: specify a new location of the selected file. This is especially useful if the checkbox Status is not marked. The latter indicates the media file could not be found while the ELAN file was opened (e.g. because the media files was moved).
  • Set Master Media: make the selected media file the Master Media.
  • Set Extracted from…: indicate that a sound file has been extracted from a video file.
  • : moves a file up/down in the linked file list. The file on top automatically becomes the Master Media file. The audio file on the highest location is displayed in the Waveform Viewer.

The Linked Secondary Files tab shows files that are linked as secondary files. In particular, files that contain data that need to be displayed by the Timeseries Viewer (see The Timeseries Viewer) are found here, but other files may be linked as well. The following options are available:

  • Add…: add a link to a new file to the current *.eaf file.
  • Remove: remove the selected file.
  • Update…: specify a new location of the selected file. This is especially useful if the checkbox Status is not marked. The latter indicates that the file could not be found while the ELAN file was opened (e.g. because the media files was moved).
  • Set Associated With...: associate the file with another linked file.

Creating automatic backups

ELAN allows you to create automatic backup copies. To create backups, do the following:

  1. Click on File menu.
  2. Go to Automatic backup.
  3. Click on the time interval after which ELAN should create the backup, e.g., after every 20 Minutes.

Figure 1.21. Automatic backup

Automatic backup


A check mark appears next to the selected time interval. From now on ELAN will automatically create a backup copy into the same directory as where the original file can be found. It will be saved with the extension *.eaf.001. Before opening such a file, rename its extension to .eaf instead of *.eaf.001. It is possible to use a pool of backup files, the size of which (maximum 5) can be set in the Preferences panel of the Edit Preferences window (See Editing preferences. ELAN will rotate the files in the pool.

Note

Automatic backups can only be made after a file has been saved! If you did not save your file before, a warning window will be shown when the backup should be made for the first time, urging you to save the file first.

Printing

  1. Printing from within ELAN can be achieved by selecting the File > Print menu.
  2. Then a standard Print dialog window is shown, choose OK to start printing.

Figure 1.22. Printing

Printing

Configuring the page settings (page setup)

Through File > Page Setup, you can alter the paper size and other settings such as orientation, etc. of the pages to be printed.

Figure 1.23. Page setup

Page setup


Previewing the printed pages

The fine tuning of the print result can be done by opening the Print Preview window, which is accessible via the File > Print Preview menu.

Figure 1.24. Print preview

Print preview


Tiers settings:

  • Put a check mark in front of all the tiers that should be printed.
  • Arrange the order of the tiers with the buttons.
  • Advanced Selection Options: click this button to get an advanced selection dialog window (see How to select tiers ).
  • The font size of the tiers can be adapted by clicking on the Font Sizes button. A new window will appear:

    Figure 1.25. Font sizes

    Font sizes


After choosing the desired font size, click on the Apply Changes button in the Print Preview window. After that, the changes will appear:

Figure 1.26. Print preview after changes

Print preview after changes


  • Width: specify the width of the printed area (in pixels). This value can only be changed by selecting a paper format in the Page setup dialog (see Configuring the page settings (page setup)).
  • Height: enter the height of the printed area (in pixels). If you leave this empty, the default height will depend upon the selected paper size.
  • Wrap Blocks:
    • No wrapping: use 1 line for each tier, only usable for files that contain a small amount of annotations.

    • Within block: wrap blocks, and continue with a new block on the same line if there is space left.

    • At block boundaries: wrap blocks, and continue with a new block on the same line if there is space left and if the new block fits on that line.

    • Each block: wrap blocks, and start on a new line if a block ends.

  • Sort: specify in which order the blocks will appear. This is similar to the tier sorting function (see Sorting tiers).
  • Line spacing: amount of white space between the lines (default: 0 pixels).
  • Block spacing: amount of white space between the blocks (default: 20 pixels).

Opening a wave file in Praat

ELAN offers the possibility to open wave files (or a part of them) in Praat[1]. To achieve this, follow the steps below:

  1. If desired, make a selection first (See How to make a selection)
  2. Right-click in the waveform viewer
  3. Choose Open file in Praat or Open selection in Praat
  4. If you haven’t specified the location of the Praat program yet, you will have to locate them now in the file dialog
  5. The Praat program containing the wave file appears

Figure 1.27. Opening a wave pattern in Praat

Opening a wave pattern in Praat


Note

Make sure you are using a recent version of Praat (higher than 4.0.5), otherwise this feature will not work.

Exporting a selection to a wave file with Praat

Similarly to opening a selection with Praat you can also carve out a selection and save it as a separate wave file. Make a selection (see How to make a selection) and right-click in the waveform viewer. Choose Clip Selection With Praat. The selected part will now be stored in the same folder as the original *.wav file, with a suffix like _23718_25110.wav, the numbers represent the begin and end, expressed in milliseconds. The selection will also be opened in a new Praat screen.

Closing a file

To close a file that is being viewed/edited without exiting ELAN use the File > Close menu option. Alternatively you can also close it by clicking on the arrow in the right upper corner or by pressing CTRL+W.

Exiting ELAN

To quit ELAN wand to close all opened windows, press CTRL+Q or do the following:

  1. Click on File menu.
  2. Click on Exit.

If you exit ELAN without having saved the changes (see Re-open recently accessed files), the Saving transcription dialog window appears, e.g.:

Figure 1.28. Save on exit

Save on exit


Check mark the files for which you want the changes to be saved. Click OK to save the changes or click Cancel to return to ELAN.



[1] See http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/