ELAN - Linguistic Annotator

version 3.8

This manual was last updated on 2009-08-19

The latest version can be downloaded from http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/elan/

Original Author: Birgit Hellwig

Updates for version 2 and higher: Dieter Van Uytvanck

Updates for version 3.2.0 and higher: Micha Hulsbosch


Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Notation Conventions
2. Recent changes to this manual
I. Getting started
1. Installation
2. Selecting a user interface language
3. Consulting the manual and website
II. USER'S GUIDE
4. ELAN documents
4.1. Basic Information: Media Files and Annotation Files
4.2. How to manage documents
4.2.1. Creating a new document
4.2.2. Synchronizing video files
4.2.3. Opening an existing document
4.2.4. Re-open recently accessed files
4.2.5. Switching between multiple files
4.2.6. Saving a document
4.2.7. Saving a selection as .eaf file
4.2.8. Merging transcriptions
4.2.9. Saving a template
4.2.10. Changing the links to media files
4.2.11. Creating automatic backups
4.2.12. Printing
4.2.13. Configuring the page settings (page setup)
4.2.14. Previewing the printed pages
4.2.15. Importing Transcriber files
4.2.16. Importing a CHAT file
4.2.17. Importing a document from Shoebox
4.2.18. Importing a document from Toolbox
4.2.19. Importing a document from Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx)
4.2.20. Importing CSV / Tab-delimited Text Files
4.2.21. Importing a Praat TextGrid file
4.2.22. Exporting a document to Shoebox
4.2.23. Exporting a document to Toolbox (UTF-8)
4.2.24. Exporting a document as a tab-delimited text file
4.2.25. Exporting Tiger XML
4.2.26. Exporting CHAT files
4.2.27. Exporting traditional transcript files
4.2.28. Exporting a Praat TextGrid file
4.2.29. Exporting an alphabetical list of words
4.2.30. Exporting a part of a clip
4.2.31. Exporting a SMIL clip
4.2.32. Exporting to QuickTime Text
4.2.33. Exporting to Subtitle Text
4.2.34. Exporting ELAN’s document view
4.2.35. Exporting to interlinear text
4.2.36. Exporting to HTML
4.2.37. Exporting to a Filmstrip Image
4.2.38. Exporting Multiple Files
4.2.39. Opening a wave file in Praat
4.2.40. Exporting a selection to a wave file with Praat
4.2.41. Closing a file
4.2.42. Exiting ELAN
4.3. Screen display and navigation through a document
4.3.1. Basic Information: The ELAN window
4.3.2. The Video Viewer
4.3.3. The Annotation Density Viewer
4.3.4. The Waveform Viewer
4.3.5. The Subtitle Viewer
4.3.6. The Grid Viewer
4.3.7. The Text Viewer
4.3.8. The Metadata Viewer
4.3.9. The Timeline Viewer and the Interlinear Viewer
4.3.10. The Timeseries Viewer
4.3.11. The Menu options
4.3.12. The Media Player options
4.3.13. The color coding
4.3.14. Increasing/decreasing the size of the ELAN window
4.3.15. Switching Viewers on/off
4.3.16. Increasing/decreasing the size of Viewers
4.3.17. Switching tiers on/off
4.3.18. Rearranging the order of tiers
4.3.19. Sorting tiers
4.3.20. Changing the time zoom
4.3.21. Changing the vertical (intensity) zoom
4.3.22. Changing the font size
4.3.23. Font Browser
4.3.24. Editing preferences
4.3.25. Importing and exporting preferences
4.3.26. Editing shortcuts
4.4. How to navigate through a document
4.4.1. Accessing points in time
4.4.2. Going to the borders of a selection
4.4.3. Jumping step by step through a document
4.4.4. Viewing a list of annotations within one tier (Grid Viewer)
4.4.5. Jumping from annotation to annotation (Interlinear Viewer)
4.5. How to play a document
4.5.1. Playing a document
4.5.2. Playing a selection
4.5.3. Playing around a selection
4.5.4. Playing in slow motion
4.5.5. Changing playback rate and volume via the keyboard
5. Annotations
5.1. Basic Information: Annotations, tiers and linguistic types
5.2. Data categories
5.3. How to define a linguistic type
5.3.1. Adding new linguistic types
5.3.2. Creating linguistic types
5.3.3. Changing linguistic types
5.3.4. Deleting linguistic types
5.3.5. Importing linguistic types
5.3.6. Associating a linguistic type with a Data Category
5.4. How to define a tier and its attributes
5.4.1. Adding new tiers
5.4.2. Importing tiers
5.4.3. Creating a tier using the Audio Recognizer
5.4.4. Changing tier attributes
5.4.5. Deleting tiers
5.4.6. Merging tiers
5.4.7. Changing the parent of a tier
5.5. Controlled Vocabularies
5.5.1. The creation of a CV
5.5.2. Associating a CV entry with a Data Category
5.5.3. Importing an existing CV
5.5.4. Exporting a CV
5.5.5. Using CVs
5.5.6. Associating a linguistic type with Controlled Vocabularies
5.6. How to make a selection
5.6.1. Making a selection on an independent tier
5.6.2. Using the selection controls
5.6.3. Creating annotation units without gaps
5.6.4. Making and saving a selection on a referring tier
5.6.5. Deselecting a selection
5.6.6. Changing the boundaries of an existing selection
5.6.7. Shifting annotations
5.6.8. Activating and deactivating the Bulldozer mode or Shift mode
5.7. How to enter annotations
5.7.1. Entering annotations (into the Inline Edit box)
5.7.2. Entering annotations (into the Edit Annotation box)
5.7.3. Entering annotations before/after other annotations
5.7.4. Creating regular annotations
5.7.5. Duplicating annotation values
5.7.6. Automatic labeling and numbering
5.7.7. On-the-fly segmentation
5.7.8. Modifying the content of annotations
5.7.9. Deleting annotation values
5.7.10. Deleting annotations
5.7.11. Merging annotations
5.7.12. Entering annotations in different character sets
5.7.13. Associating an annotation with a Data Category
5.8. How to create annotation units on dependent tiers
5.9. How to filter and copy tiers
5.9.1. Filtering tiers
5.9.2. Copying tiers
5.10. How to detect annotation overlaps
5.11. Copy and paste annotations
5.11.1. Copy annotation
5.11.2. Paste annotation
5.11.3. Paste annotation here
5.11.4. Duplicate annotation
5.11.5. Synopsis
5.12. How to undo an action
5.13. Information about annotations
5.13.1. Annotations Spreadsheet
5.13.2. Annotations Statistics
6. Searching
6.1. Searching in a single annotation file
6.1.1. Advanced searching: an example
6.2. Displaying search results
6.2.1. The search history
6.2.2. Refining a search
6.2.3. Saving and loading queries
6.2.4. Exporting the search results
6.2.5. Search and replace
6.3. Jumping from the search results to annotations
6.4. Searching through multiple annotation files
6.5. Structured search through multiple annotation files
6.5.1. Substring Search Tab
6.5.2. Single Layer Search tab
6.5.3. Multiple Layer Search tab
6.6. Search and replace in multiple annotation files
7. Reference guide
7.1. The mouse options
7.1.1. Resizing Viewers
7.1.2. Rearranging the order of tiers
7.1.3. Make a tier the active tier
7.1.4. Accessing points in time
7.1.5. Playing a document
7.1.6. Making a selection
7.1.7. Adding/modifying an annotation
7.2. The shortcut keys
7.2.1. File options
7.2.2. Playing a document & making selections
7.2.3. Working with annotations
7.2.4. Copy and paste
7.2.5. Working with selections
7.2.6. Searching
7.2.7. General
7.3. Key concepts of ELAN
7.3.1. Annotation file (*.eaf)
7.3.2. Media file (*.mpg, *.mov, *.wav etc.)
7.3.3. Annotation
7.3.4. Tier
A. REGULAR EXPRESSION SEARCH
A.1. Character Classes
A.2. Line terminators
A.3. Groups and capturing
A.4. Comparison to Perl 5