How to manage documents

To start ELAN, do the following:

  1. Double-click on the ELAN icon (on your desktop, or contained within the Java Web Start icon on your desktop).

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

  2. Click on the File menu (see Figure 4.1, “File menu”)

    The main options in the File menu are:

    Figure 4.1. File menu

    File menu

  3. Click on:

    Different dialog windows 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.

Creating a new document

In case there is a media file but no annotation file (*.eaf, *.txt, *.trs), click on New in the File menu. The New Transcription dialog window (see Figure 4.2, “The New Transcription dialog window: media”) will be displayed, e.g.:

Figure 4.2. The New Transcription dialog window: media

The New Transcription dialog window: media

Do the following:

  1. Click on the Look in pull down box 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 in the Files of type dropdown menu. If a media type is supported depends on your software configuration.

  3. Double-click on the media file (*.mpg, *.mov, *.wav, etc.) to select it. It appears now in the rightmost box. Alternatively, you can click on the media file name and click afterwards on the >> button.

  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 4.3. The New Transcription dialog window: templates

    The New Transcription dialog window: templates

  5. Beside media files on disk you can also add a streaming file of Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). Click on Add Streaming File... and enter the URL of the streaming 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.

Set the author 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.

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. This can be done as follows:

  1. Open the new document with the 2 (or more) video files.

  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 expressed as to the 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 the section called “How to navigate through a document”.

    Figure 4.4. 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 the section called “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 4.5. 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 the section called “Activating and deactivating the Bulldozer mode or Shift mode”):

    Figure 4.6. 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 there is a media file (*.mpg, *.mov, *.wav etc.) and an ELAN file (*.eaf), click Open in the File menu.

The Open dialog window is displayed:

Figure 4.7. 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 appears.

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

Figure 4.8. Error message: no eaf file

Error message: no eaf file

Note

If ELAN cannot find the associated media files (*.mpg, *.mpeg, *.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 4.9. Locate media file

Locate media file

Re-open recently accessed files

A convenient way to open a file that you have previously been working with is the File > Open Recent File dropdown menu.

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 4.10. Windows dropdown menu

Windows dropdown menu

Click on one of the files to activate it.

Saving a document

All documents can be saved as ELAN files (*.eaf, “EUDICO Annotation Format”). This includes documents that were created by ELAN itself (see the section called “Creating a new document”) as well as documents that were imported into ELAN from Shoebox/Toolbox, CHAT or Transcriber (see the section called “Importing a document from Shoebox”, the section called “Importing a CHAT file” or the section called “Importing Transcriber files”). 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 *.pfs file will be written as well. This file contains user and document specific settings like the font size used to display text. The *.pfs file can however be safely removed as it does not contain any annotation data.

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 4.11. 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.

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 4.12. 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. If there are common tiers in both files and you want those of the second file to overwrite those of the first, make sure Allow existing annotations to be overwritten is checked.

  5. Enter a file name for the result of the merge operation.

  6. Click on Next

  7. Select the tiers of the second source file that you want to merge with the first file and click on Finish

    Figure 4.13. Merge transcriptions dialog window

    Merge transcriptions dialog window

  8. When the merge procedure has been finished you can choose whether to open the result immediately in new ELAN window:

    Figure 4.14. 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 the section called “Creating a new document” for a 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 e.g. you have moved media files to another location after the last time you edited an ELAN file.

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

Figure 4.15. 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 to the current *.eaf file

  • Remove: remove the selected media file

  • Update… : specify a new location of the selected file. 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 to be displayed by the Timeseries viewer (see the section called “The Timeseries Viewer”) is 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. Especially useful if the checkbox Status is not marked. The latter indicates 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 10 minutes.

Figure 4.16. Automatic backup

Automatic backup


A checkmark appears next to the selected time interval. From now on ELAN will automatically create a backup copy in the same directory as the original file, saving it with the extension *.eaf.001. Before opening such a file, rename its extension to .eaf instead of .eaf.001

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 is shown, choose OK to start printing.

Figure 4.17. Printing

Printing

Configuring the page settings (page setup)

Through File > Page setup you can alter the paper size and other settings of the pages to be printed.

Figure 4.18. 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 4.19. Print preview

Print preview


Tiers settings

  • Put a checkmark in front of all the tiers that should be printed.

  • Arrange the order of the tiers with the buttons.

  • The font size of the tiers can be adapted by clicking on the Font Sizes button. A new window will appear:

    Figure 4.20. 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 4.21. 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 the section called “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 the section called “Sorting tiers”).

  • Line spacing: amount of whitespace between the lines (default: 0 pixels)

  • Block spacing: amount of whitespace between the blocks (default: 20 pixels)

Importing Transcriber files

The feature to import Transcriber annotation files into ELAN works as follows:

  1. Choose File > Import > Transcriber File …

  2. Select the transcriber file (*.trs) and click on Open

  3. If the associated sound file cannot be found, a dialog will be shown asking you to locate it. When this request is cancelled, one can choose to open the annotation file without the sound, or to stop the whole import process.

The transcriber tiers will be mapped on the ELAN equivalents:

Importing a CHAT file

It is possible to import CHAT files (used in e.g. the Childes project) in ELAN:

  1. Select File > Import > CHAT File …

  2. Select the Chat file

  3. Click on Open

Some remarks about this import feature:

  • supported are old CHAT files and CHAT-UTF8, not XML CHAT

  • existing media alignment in %snd tiers is maintained in ELAN:

    • when no media alignment is present at all, each CHAT utterance gets a default interval of 1 second assigned

    • when partial media alignment is present, the time interval is equally distributed over preceding unaligned utterances

    • overlapping utterances of the same participant are corrected as good as possible

    • CHAT dependent tier names are mapped to ELAN Linguistic Types

    • ELAN tier names are either CHAT participant labels or CHAT tier names, followed by '@participantName'

Remaining issues:

  • '<' and '>' characters in CHAT cause parsing errors when the imported file is saved as EAF file

Importing a document from Shoebox[1]

ELAN supports the import of documents from Shoebox, thereby allowing you to link transcribed and/or interlinearized documents to the time axis of media files. In order to import from Shoebox, you need at least the following two files:

  • the Shoebox file (*.txt);

  • the media file(s) (*.mpg, *.mov, *.wav etc.);

Optionally you can use the corresponding Shoebox database type file (*.typ). If this is not available, one has to provide a list with field markers (= tier names).

Note

If you do not know the Shoebox database type file, do the following:

  1. Open the Shoebox *.txt file in Shoebox. Make sure it is the active window (click on it to activate it).

  2. Click on Database menu.

  3. Click on Properties …. The Database Type Properties dialog box appears. The name of the database type is displayed in the header, e.g.:

    Figure 4.22. Database type properties dialog window

    Database type properties dialog window


  4. Locate the directory of the database type file (e.g., “texts.typ” in the above illustration). It is probably located in the directory “My Shoebox Settings”.

Importing Shoebox files with a TYP file

To import a Shoebox file into ELAN, do the following:

  1. Click on File > Import > Shoebox File. The Import Shoebox dialog box appears.

  2. Specify the name and directory of the two files, e.g.:

    Figure 4.23. Import Shoebox file with TYP file

    Import Shoebox file with TYP file


  3. Like *.eaf documents, the Shoebox file and the media file(s) do not necessarily need to have the same name, and they do not need to be in the same directory (see the section called “Basic Information: Media Files and Annotation Files”).

    If the Shoebox file contains both aligned (i.e. containing time information) and non-aligned records, the aligned ones will maintain the timing, whereas the location of the non-aligned records will be interpolated automatically.

  4. Click OK to import the file; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog box without importing the file.

An ELAN window containing the imported Shoebox file appears.

Importing Shoebox files without a TYP file

Instead of using a Shoebox *.typ file, there is also an option in ELAN to define the field markers yourself when importing a Shoebox file.

  1. select the Set field markers and click on the button in the import dialog:

    Figure 4.24. Import Shoebox file without TYP file

    Import Shoebox file without TYP file


  2. Now fill in a field marker as used in the Shoebox *.txt file

  3. Optionally select a parent marker (see the section called “Basic Information: Annotations, tiers and linguistic types”)

  4. Optionally select a stereotype (symbolic subdivision or association, see the section called “Basic Information: Annotations, tiers and linguistic types”)

  5. Choose a character set (Latin-1, SIL IPA or UTF-8) for the tier

  6. Click on Add.

  7. Repeat step 2-6 for all field markers.

  8. If the selected marker designates a participant, check the Participant Marker checkbox. If you don’t want the selected marker to be imported, tick Exclude from import.

  9. finally choose Close and click on OK in the import Shoebox file dialog

    Figure 4.25. Set Shoebox/Toolbox field markers

    Set Shoebox/Toolbox field markers


Loading and storing Markers

Once you have manually created a set of field makers, you might want to reuse them later on. ELAN provides support for this:

  • To save a set of field markers, select the Store Markers… button. This will display a save dialog. Enter a filename, and press save.

  • The same way you can open a stored field marker set by clicking on Load Markers…

Figure 4.26. Store markers

Store markers


Connecting the transcription to a media file

Once the import has succeeded, you can add a reference to a media file via the Edit > Linked Files… menu, as described in the section called “Changing the links to media files”. If the imported Shoebox file was exported from ELAN before, you won’t need to establish the link to the media file(s) again, as in that case the location information is stored in the file.

About the import process

ELAN imports Shoebox files according to the following conventions:

  1. The Shoebox field markers are imported as ELAN tiers. The tier label is identical to that of the field marker, except for the added extension @‘Speaker-ID’.

    This addition is necessary because ELAN and Shoebox differ in how they code information about multiple speakers:

    • In ELAN, each speaker is coded on a separate tier.

    • In Shoebox, all speakers are coded using the same field, and their identity is specified in a separate field.

    Figure 4.27. Shoebox field markers and ELAN tiers

    Shoebox field markers and ELAN tiers


    When importing texts by multiple speakers, ELAN splits each Shoebox field into several ELAN tiers (one for each speaker) and adds the speaker-ID to the tier label.

    If speaker information is not specified in the Shoebox file, the extension @unknown is added.

    The following screenshot illustrates how ELAN treats texts by multiple speakers:

    Figure 4.28. Multiple speakers in ELAN

    Multiple speakers in ELAN


Note that ELAN can only read speaker information if:

  • A marker is defined as a Participant marker in the Set field marker dialog (see Importing Shoebox files without a TYP file above), or if:

  • It is coded in a Shoebox field labeled \EUDICOp or \ELANParticipant (see illustration above). If this field is not present, or if speaker information is coded in a different field, ELAN will assume that there is only one speaker. I.e., if you have multiple speakers and if you want ELAN to assign them to separate tiers, do the following:

    1. For every Shoebox record, add the field marker \EUDICOp.

    2. For every Shoebox record, enter the relevant speaker-ID into this field.

Note

When the file is exported back to Shoebox (see the section called “Exporting a document to Shoebox”), the extension @‘Speaker-ID’ is automatically dropped from the field marker, and the Shoebox records are sorted according to their record marker (e.g., in the above illustration, “test 001” is sorted before “test 002” etc.)

  1. Based on the information contained in the Shoebox database type file, the tiers are brought into a hierarchical relationship and are assigned to linguistic types (see the section called “Basic Information: Annotations, tiers and linguistic types” for details of tier hierarchies and linguistic types). For every tier name a corresponding linguistic type with the same name is created. All of these linguistic types are connected with a stereotype in such a way that it fits with the original Shoebox structure.

    • The Shoebox record marker is assigned to the stereotype None, i.e., it is an independent, time-alignable parent tier.

    • The transcription and parsing fields of Shoebox are assigned to the stereotype Symbolic Subdivision, i.e., they are referring tiers that can be subdivided into smaller units.

    • All other fields are assigned to the stereotype Symbolic Association, i.e., they are referring tiers that cannot be subdivided into smaller units.

If you define the markers yourself, then there also is the possibility to choose the Time Subdivision stereotype. For example:

Figure 4.29. Time Subdivision

Time Subdivision


  1. All SIL IPA characters are converted into Unicode characters during import. If you export the file back into Shoebox (see the section called “Exporting a document to Shoebox”), the Unicode characters will be converted back into SIL IPA characters.

  2. Initially, unless it had the time code information, the imported Shoebox file does not contain information about timing. Instead, ELAN automatically assigns each Shoebox record to a three second time interval, as in the following illustration:

    Figure 4.30. Fixed time intervals

    Fixed time intervals


The time alignment has to be done manually for each Shoebox record. Do the following:

  1. Activate the Bulldozer mode: Click on Options > Propagate Time Changes > Bulldozer Mode (see the section called “Activating and deactivating the Bulldozer mode or Shift mode” for the three available modes).

    Note

    If you do not activate the Bulldozer mode, you will inadvertently overwrite and thereby delete existing annotations. Make sure that Bulldozer Mode is enabled in the Options > Propagate Time Changes menu.

  2. Click on the first annotation on the parent tier (i.e., the first Shoebox record). It appears in a dark blue frame.

  3. Modify the boundaries of that annotation, so that they are aligned with the correct time interval (see the section called “Changing the boundaries of an existing selection” for ways of modifying boundaries).

  4. Press CTRL+ENTER to apply the new time interval.

    The parent annotation (together with all its referring annotations) is assigned to the new time interval. All other parent annotations are moved to the right.

  5. Repeat steps 2 to 4 for each parent annotation.

The following screenshot illustrates steps 1 to 4:

Figure 4.31. Time alignment

Time alignment


After you have done the time-alignment, you can export the file back to Shoebox – in this case, the time code information will be kept (see the section called “Exporting a document to Shoebox”). If you then re-import the file back into ELAN, ELAN automatically assigns the Shoebox records to their correct time intervals.

An imported Shoebox file can be saved as an ELAN file (see the section called “Re-open recently accessed files”), exported back into Shoebox (see the section called “Exporting a document to Shoebox”), or exported as a tab-delimited text (see the section called “Exporting a document as a tab-delimited text file”).

Importing a document from Toolbox

Importing a document form Toolbox is very much the same as importing a document from Shoebox (see the section called “Importing a document from Shoebox”). The Toolbox import assumes that all markers in the file are Unicode (although it still allows to import files in which all markers are in ISO-Latin if you uncheck All markers are Unicode). This alternative to the Shoebox import attempts to allow more flexibility in terms of tier relations and tries to prevent that words are cut up in case of misalignment. As with the Shoebox import, information about the tier relations can be provided by means of a .typ file or by using a marker file.

When reconstructing the vertical alignment of words on interlinearized markers, the position is recalculated based on the number of bytes per character. But in some files this leads to incorrect alignment, therefore this recalculation can be turned off by unchecking Correct alignment based on the number of bytes per character. This import also tries to take non-spacing characters into account.

Importing a document from Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx)

ELAN can import documents from the SIL Fieldworks Language Explorer (FLEx). To do so click File > Import > FLEx File.... Select the FLEx file and relevant media files by clicking the ...-buttons. Determine whether you want to import the "interlinear-text" and "paragraph" elements and what the smallest time-alignable element should be. Finally enter the duration of the whole file or the initial duration of the smallest time-alignable element you have chosen. Start the import by clicking OK.

Importing CSV / Tab-delimited Text Files

A CSV (Comma Separated Values) or Tab-delimited Text file is a text file in which one can identify rows and columns. Rows are represented by the lines in the file and the columns are created by separating the values on each line by a specific character, like a comma or a tab. CSV or Tab-delimited Text files can be compared to spreadsheets like the ones in Microsoft Excel in that they also have rows and columns. Note that .csv files can be created by Excel.

Take a look at Figure 4.32, “Tab-delimited Text”. The first row represents the event of a person saying 'so from here'. The first value (as well as the first column of the complete file) represents the tier name, the second and third represent begin time in different formats, the fourth and fifth represent the end time, the sixth an seventh represent the duration and the last value represents the annotation.

Figure 4.32. Tab-delimited Text

Tab-delimited Text


You are able to import CSV or Tab-delimited Text files in ELAN: File > Import > CSV / Tab-delimited Text File.... In the dialog window browse to and select a file that contains CSV or Tab-delimited data and click Open.

The second dialog window contains two sections (see Figure 4.33, “Import CSV / Tab-delimited Text”). The upper section shows a sample table containing data from the selected file. Both rows and columns are numbered. The lower section enables you to specify which columns to include and what data type they represent. This means that the format of the files is flexible: it is not prescribed what data is expected nor how it is formatted. The numbers of the columns in the Import Options section correspond to the numbers of the columns in the sample table. The data types you can select are:

  • Annotation

  • Tier

  • Begin time

  • End time

  • Duration

Select at least one column with data type 'Annotation'. If you select a column for begin time, end time and duration, the latter will be ignored in the import process.

Figure 4.33. Import CSV / Tab-delimited Text

Import CSV / Tab-delimited Text

The option Specify first row of data enables you to exclude a header by excluding the first few lines. The option Specify delimiter lets you specify the delimiter if Elan did not guess the correct delimiter. The delimiters supported by Elan are comma, tab, colon and semi-colon.

If you enable the option Default annotation duration Elan creates all annotations from the selected file with durations equal to the number of milliseconds specified. This option works only if there is no time data or only the begin or end times.

Finally click OK to import the data. A new transcription document is created with the imported annotations as its contents.

Another example

To demonstrate that the format of the imported file can be flexible, take a look at the following tab-delimited text:

Figure 4.34. Tab-delimited text, different orientation

Tab-delimited text, different orientation


In this example each column represents a tier with the tier names in the first row and the annotation in the other rows. This file can be imported by selecting the following import options:

Figure 4.35. Import CSV / Tab-delimited Text

Import CSV / Tab-delimited Text


Note that the Specify first row of data option is set to 2. As a consequence Elan starts importing annotations from row 2 instead of row 1. Furthermore, Elan tries to extract tier names from the first line of the file if the column they part of is specified as 'annotation'. This results in this example in two tiers: K-Spch and W-Spch.

Importing a Praat TextGrid file

ELAN offers the possibility to import a Praat TextGrid file: click on File > Import > Praat TextGrid File.... In the dialog window that now appears, you can browse to the file you wish to import. You are also able to include Praat PointTiers. When selecting this option, specify the default PointTiers annotation duration in milliseconds. Finally, check Skip empty intervals / annotations if you want to do so.

If there is already a annotation document opened in ELAN, the imported TextGrid is added to the document in one or more new tiers. If there is no annotation document opened, a new document consisting of the TextGrid data is generated.

In addition to TextGrid files in the default encoding for the operating system, ELAN supports Praat TextGrid files with UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoding.

Exporting a document to Shoebox

All Shoebox files that were imported into ELAN (see the section called “Importing a CHAT file”) can be exported back into Shoebox. In this case, the time code information is kept.

To export a file into Shoebox, do the following:

  1. Click on File menu.

  2. Click on Export as > Shoebox file ….

    The Shoebox Export dialog box appears. Make a choice and click on OK to continue.

    Figure 4.36. Shoebox Export dialog window

    Shoebox Export dialog window


    • By selecting Wrap block you can let ELAN wrap a whole block if one of the line in a block is longer than a specified number of character (default is 80 characters).

    • By selecting Add master media time offset to annotation times you can add to the annotation times the time offset from the master media that originated from the synchronization of media files (see the section called “Synchronizing video files”).

  3. Specify the name and directory of the exported file, e.g.:

    Figure 4.37. Name and directory of exported file

    Name and directory of exported file


  4. Click Save to export the file; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog box without exporting the file.

    The file is exported as a *.txt file.

    If there already exists a file of the same name, ELAN will ask you whether or not it should overwrite the existing file, e.g.:

    Figure 4.38. File Exists

    File Exists


  5. Open the exported file in Shoebox.

    It contains the following information:

    1. All tiers and annotations.

      Each ELAN parent annotation (including all its referring annotations) corresponds to one Shoebox record. E.g., in the illustration below, the ELAN parent annotation “Ligya-001” corresponds to the Shoebox record “Ligya-001”.

    2. The time code information for each parent annotation.

      Each ELAN parent annotation (i.e., each Shoebox record) contains the additional field markers \ELANBegin and \ELANEnd (i.e., the begin and end time of the parent annotation).

      This timecode information allows you to import the Shoebox file back into ELAN, without having to manually re-align the file (see the section called “Importing a document from Shoebox”).

    Figure 4.39. ELAN file and exported file

    ELAN file and exported file

Exporting a document to Toolbox (UTF-8)

Similar to exporting a document to Shoebox (see the section called “Exporting a document to Shoebox”) ELAN data can be exported to a Toolbox document with an UTF-8 encoding. This export provides more options for output customization.

To export a file into Toolbox, do the following:

  1. Click on File menu.

  2. Click on Export as > Toolbox File (UTF-8)...

    The Toolbox Export dialog box appears:

    Figure 4.40. Toolbox Export dialog window

    Toolbox Export dialog window


    Only the left part of ELAN tier names containing an @ are identified as tier markers for Toolbox. These markers form a block in the exported file. The right part of the ELAN tier names are identified as participant names. These are exported with the marker ELANParticipant (see also Figure 4.41, “ELAN file and exported Toolbox file”).

    If you use a Shoebox *.typ file to specify the Toolbox database type ELAN extracts the database type name from the first line of the type file (e.g. the database type name Text in \+DatabaseType Text) and puts is in the first line of the exported file (e.g. \_sh v3.0 400 Text).

    When there is only one root tier (tier without a parent tier) in the transcription (e.g. ref) this will be used as the record marker by default. When there are multiple root tiers "\block" will be added as record marker. In both cases it is possible to specify a custom record marker instead.

    Some options not touched up in Figure 4.40, “Toolbox Export dialog window”:

    • By first selecting a tier and then selecting Insert blank line after this marker you insert a blank line after the selected marker every time the marker is printed in the exported file. The tier name is colored blue in the dialog box.

    • By selecting Wrap block you can let ELAN wrap a whole block if one of the lines in a block is longer than a specified number of characters (default is 80 characters). A block in this context refers to the markers that are part of the interlinearization.

    • When Wrap blocks is selected it is also possible to select Wrap lines. This applies to long marker lines that are not part of the interlinearization. There are 2 variants: when Wrap to next line is selected the line is split into 2 or more lines that immediately follow each other, regardless of their position in the record. When Wrap to end of block is selected everything beyond the first wrap is placed at the end of the record. Note that wrapped interlinearization blocks are grouped as much as possible.

    • When Include empty markers is selected all markers will be printed in each record, whether there is content or not. When this option is not selected a marker will not be printed in a record when it has no content.

    • By selecting Add master media time offset to annotation times you can add to the annotation times the time offset from the master media that originated from the synchronization of media files (see the section called “Synchronizing video files”).

    Make a choice and click on OK to continue.

  3. Specify the name and directory of the exported file.

  4. Click Save to export the file; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog box without exporting the file.

    The file is exported as a *.txt file.

    If there already exists a file of the same name, ELAN will ask you whether or not it should overwrite the existing file.

  5. Open the exported file in Toolbox.

    It contains the following information:

    1. All tiers and annotations.

      Each ELAN parent annotation (including all its referring annotations) corresponds to one Toolbox record. E.g., in the illustration below, the ELAN parent annotation “CLLDCh3R02S01.001” corresponds to the Toolbox record “CLLDCh3R02S01.001”.

    2. The time code information for each parent annotation.

      Each ELAN parent annotation (i.e., each Toolbox record) contains the additional field markers \ELANBegin and \ELANEnd (i.e., the begin and end time of the parent annotation).

      This timecode information allows you to import the Toolbox file back into ELAN, without having to manually re-align the file (see the section called “Importing a document from Shoebox”).

    Figure 4.41. ELAN file and exported Toolbox file

    ELAN file and exported Toolbox file

Exporting a document as a tab-delimited text file

All documents can be exported into a tabular format for purposes of further analysis and/or printing. This includes documents that were created by ELAN itself (see the section called “Creating a new document” and the section called “Opening an existing document”) as well as documents that were imported into ELAN from Shoebox (see the section called “Importing a document from Shoebox”) Do the following:

  1. Click on File menu.

  2. Click on Export as > Tab-delimited Text ….

    The Export as tab-delimited text dialog window is displayed, e.g.:

    Figure 4.42. Export as tab-delimited text dialog window

    Export as tab-delimited text dialog window
    1. Click here to select the tiers to be exported.

    2. Change the order of the tiers.

    3. Click here to export a selected time interval only.

    4. Add time offset from the master media to the annotation times.

    5. Annotations sharing the same begin and end time are exported in the same row.

    6. Select time information and format.

    7. Add extra time format expressed in hours, minutes, seconds and frame.


  3. By default, ELAN exports all annotations, but it is possible to restrict the export process to selected annotations. The following three options are available:

    1. Export only those annotations that correspond to a selected time interval. Do the following:

      1. In the ELAN window, select the desired time interval (see the section called “Making a selection on an independent tier”).

      2. In the Export as tab-delimited text dialog window, click in the box to the left of Restrict to selected time interval. A checkmark appears indicating that this option has been selected.

    2. Export only those annotations that are contained on particular tiers. Do the following:

      In the Export as tab-delimited text dialog window, select those tiers that you want to export. A checkmark appears next to any selected tier.

    3. Export only those annotations that (a) correspond to a particular time interval and (b) are contained on particular tiers. To do this, combine the two steps under (a) and (b) above.

  4. By selecting Add master media time offset to annotation times you can add to the annotation times the time offset from the master media that originated from the synchronization of media files (see the section called “Synchronizing video files”).

  5. The option Separate column for each tier gives each tier its own column in the export file. Annotations that have the same begin time and the same end time are exported to the same row i.e. the same tab-delimited line.

    • If you check Repeat values of annotations spanning other annotations the spanning annotation is put in each row containing an annotation it spans. The spanning annotation is not in a row by itself.

    • The option Only repeat within annotation hierarchies limits the previous option. An annotation is only repeated if it is on one of the ancestor tiers in the annotation hierarchy.

  6. Select the time markers you want to export (begin time, end time and/or duration of every annotation unit).

  7. Choose the time format (hh:mm:ss.ms, ss.msec, milliseconds and/or SMPTE timecode)

    Note

    If you choose the SMPTE (hh:mm:ss.ff) format, the selected video standard (PAL or NTSC) just indicates the way seconds and milliseconds are converted to frame numbers. This is independent of the actual video standard of the associated video(s).

  8. Click OK to start the export process; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog box without exporting the annotations.

  9. Finally you will see a save dialog window. In the Encoding drop down box a text encoding can be selected (either iso-latin, UTF-8 or UTF-16). Make an appropriate choice and click on Save.

    Note

    Some Mac applications, like TextEdit, have difficulties to load UTF-8 encoded files. This is most noticeable for “special” characters, e.g. IPA. Using UTF-16 is recommended in that case.

    A message appears to inform you that the file has been exported. The exported file has the extension *.txt.

    The exported file contains the following information: participant, begin time of each annotation, end time, total length, content, and tier. It can be opened with any program that can handle tab-delimited texts, e.g., Microsoft Excel.

    Figure 4.43. Tab-delimited text

    Tab-delimited text


    Note

    Some versions of Excel seem to have problems importing tab-separated files (white rectangles are shown instead of the column borders). As a workaround you can open the text file first in a text editor (e.g. Notepad) and copy and paste the content into Excel.

Exporting Tiger XML

If your ELAN annotations contain syntactic elements, it is possible to export these to Synpathy[2] (see http://www.lat-mpi.eu/tools/synpathy/). This function is available via File > Export as > Tiger-xml…

First select out of the candidate tiers the one you want to be exported. Afterwards, map the tiers onto the correct description ("word" or "pos"). Finally enter the name of the file (*.tig).

Exporting CHAT files

  1. Choosing File > Export as > CHAT file … will give you the following screen:

    Figure 4.44. Export Chat file

    Export Chat file


  2. Fill in the necessary fields.

    Note

    Chat labels must be preceded by * (for root tiers) or % (for dependent tiers). While root tiers have to contain exactly 3 characters, dependent tier names can have up to 7 characters.

  3. Click on Export…

  4. Fill in a chat file name and choose Save

Exporting traditional transcript files

In some situations a straight-forward list of the annotation units, one after another, can be handy. For that cause an export option to a “traditional transcript text” has been added to ELAN. In its simplest form it just will create a text file containing the successive annotations of several tiers, in chronological order. This feature can be found under File > Export as > Traditional Transcript Text....

Figure 4.45. Export Transcript Text

Export Transcript Text


As can be seen in one of the options enables you to include silences with a minimal duration. In the figure there is a silence of 0.2 seconds between 'yeah' on the tier K-Spch and 'and the you go the other ...' on the tier W-Spch. The first annotation end at 00:00:04.400 seconds and the second begin at 00:00:04.600 seconds, resulting in a silence of 0.2 seconds. If this silence was shorter than the minimal silence duration entered in the export dialog window (20 ms in the figure), the silence will not be included in the exported file.

Exporting a Praat TextGrid file

When you wish to work with your annotations in Praat, ELAN enables you to export your annotation to a Praat TextGrid. To do this, click File > Export as > Praat TextGrid.... In the dialog window that appears you can select the tiers you wish to export and specify whether you want to restrict the output to the selected interval.

After clicking OK, you can enter a filename and select an encoding. In addition to TextGrid files in the default encoding for the operating system, ELAN supports Praat TextGrid files with UTF-8 and UTF-16 encoding. Finally click on Save.

Exporting an alphabetical list of words

Sometimes it can be very useful to have a alphabetical list of (unique) words from one or more tiers. ELAN offers a way to generate such lists. Go to File > Export as > List of Words ... and select the tiers (if Tiers by Name is selected) or tier types (if Tiers by Type is selected) from which you want to extract the words. The annotations of the selected tiers will be tokenized (split into words) using either a default set of delimiters or a user definable set. Check Count occurrences if you want the list to include the number of occurrences for each token. After selecting tiers (or better, deselecting unwanted tiers) you can click OK and choose a filename. Clicking Save will save the word list.

Exporting a part of a clip

When a command line tool for extracting clips from video files is installed Elan is able to use that tool. At this moment only M2-edit-cl[3] from Mediaware Solutions is supported. If the edit tool is in the user path and a selection is made, there is a menu item to export a video clip of the current selection for each linked video. In that case, follow these steps:

  1. Select the part of the video(s) you want to export as (a) clip(s)

  2. Choose File > Export As > Media Clip...

  3. Enter a filename and press Save

Exporting a SMIL clip

ELAN supports export to SMIL[4]-compliant clips. With a suitable player this enables you to view media files and the associated annotations as a subtitled movie.

  1. Select the File > Export As > SMIL... menu. This will bring up this dialog box:

    Figure 4.46. Export SMIL

    Export SMIL


  2. Select the tiers you want to export. Keep CTRL pressed and click to select multiple tiers, press Shift and click to select multiple successive tiers.

  3. Check Restrict to selected time interval if you only want to export the current selection. Otherwise the whole media file and associated annotations will be exported.

  4. Click on the suggested filename to change the location where the SMIL clip will be saved.

  5. Choose OK to export the clip.

Exporting to QuickTime Text

Another format you can export to from ELAN is QuickTime subtitle Text. To do this, go to File > Export As > QuickTime Text.... Select the tiers you want to be included in the subtitles. Optionally specify the following options:

  • Restrict to selected time interval: restrict the subtitles to the current selection.

  • Add master media time offset to annotation times: add to the annotation times the time offset from the master media that originated from the synchronization of media files (see the section called “Synchronizing video files”).

  • Minimal duration per subtitle (in ms.): specify the minimal display duration of a subtitle. For instance, if a annotation is only 0.3 seconds long, but you want to display a subtitle at least 0.5 seconds, enter 500 (ms).

  • Merge tiers into one QuickTime text file: If not selected a separate text file will be generated for each tier.

Finally click on OK.

Exporting to Subtitle Text

Besides the QuickTime subtitle Text (see the section called “Exporting to QuickTime Text”) there is another subtitle format ELAN can export annotations to: SubRip with file extension .srt. Click on File > Export As > Subtitle Text... and select the tiers you want to include in the subtitle file. Specify whether the subtitles should be restricted to annotations in the selected time interval and if the master media time offset should be added to the annotations times. The third option lets you specify the minimal display duration of a subtitle. For instance, if a annotation is only 0.3 seconds long, but you want to display a subtitle at least 0.5 seconds, enter 500 (ms).

Figure 4.47. Export as Subtitles text

Export as Subtitles text


After you have selected tiers and specified the options, click on OK. Enter a filename in the next window and click on Save.

Exporting ELAN’s document view

To export ELAN’s document view (i.e. to make a screenshot):

  1. choose File > Export As > Image from Elan Window...

  2. Enter a filename and an extension (*.jpg, *.jpeg, *.png or *.bmp)

  3. click on Save.

    Note

    If you are using Windows, it sometimes happens that ELAN’s video window is black on the picture created using this function. This can be solved by temporary disabling the hardware video acceleration:

    1. Right-click on the desktop

    2. choose properties

    3. select the Settings tab

    4. Click on the advanced… button

    5. Select the Troubleshooting tab

    6. move the Hardware Acceleration slider tot None

    Don’t forget to re-enable the hardware acceleration afterwards, because this has a strong effect on the system’s graphical performance.

Exporting to interlinear text

This function (File > Export as > Interlinearized Text...) is very similar to ELAN’s printing system. Therefore more information can be found in the section called “Previewing the printed pages”. The main difference is that the width of the exported text depends in this case on the number of characters that fits on one line.

Figure 4.48. Set Layout options

Set Layout options


Figure 4.49. Maximum line width

Maximum line width


After selecting an appropriate layout click on Save as and choose a location and file name. These files can afterwards easily be edited with any text editor (preferably using a fixed-with font). Optionally tick the Insert tabs between annotations box if you prefer to have the whitespace between annotations to be filled with tabs instead of spaces (especially useful when importing a text file into Word).

Exporting to HTML

Similarly to the export to interlinear text (see the section called “Exporting to interlinear text”) you can also export annotations to a HTML file, through the File > Export as > HTML... menu.

Exporting to a Filmstrip Image

Figure 4.50. An exported filmstrip image

An exported filmstrip image


To export a Filmstrip Image first select the time segment you want the filmstrip of. Then click File > Export As > Filmstrip Image.... In the dialog window (see Figure 4.51, “Exporting to a filmstrip image”) you can define the width of each video frame, which frames to include and whether ELAN must add a time code in each frame. Moreover, ELAN can add the waveform, with or without a ruler, and specify the height. You can also specify whether the stereo channel should be displayed separately or merged or blended. Click on OK to generate the image. Finally select a destination folder, enter a filename and click on Save.

An example or an exported filmstrip image can be seen in Figure 4.50, “An exported filmstrip image”.

Figure 4.51. Exporting to a filmstrip image

Exporting to a filmstrip image


Exporting Multiple Files

ELAN offers the possibility to export multiple annotation files as one file. To do so click on File > Export Multiple Files As... and one of the three following options:

  • Tab-delimited Text...

  • List of Annotations...

  • List of Words...

In the dialog window that now opens do one of the following:

  • Select an existing domain from the list and click Load. (Click Delete if you want to delete the domain.)

  • Create a new domain:

    1. Click New Domain...

    2. Click in the new dialog on the Look in pull down box and browse to the directory that contains the annotation files.

    3. Double-click an annotation file (*.eaf) to select it. It now appears in the rightmost box. Alternatively, you can click on the annotation file name and click the >> button.

      Repeat this for every annotation file you want to include.

      It is also possible to select a complete directory. All .eaf files in a selected directory will be included.

    4. Click OK to continue the exporting process; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog window without exporting.

    5. If you clicked OK you can save this domain: enter a name and click OK. If you do not want to save the domain click Cancel.

  • Create a new domain from an IMDI search:

    1. Click New Domain from IMDI Search...

    2. Browse to and select an IMDI file that has been exported from a metadata search in the standalone IMDI Browser.

    3. Click Open.

    4. You can save this domain: enter a name and click OK. If you do not want to save the domain click Cancel.

The next step depends on which of the three menu options you have chosen:

  • Tab-delimited Text... : Select tiers and options as you would do when exporting a single Tab-delimited Text file (see the section called “Exporting a document as a tab-delimited text file”). A column containing the filenames is added to the export file.

    Note

    The following options cannot be checked:

    • Restrict to selected time interval: the selected time interval does not necessarily correspond to an interval in the files selected for export.

    • Add master media time offset to annotation times: the master media (time offset) of the file currently opened in ELAN does not necessarily correspond to the media (time offset) of the files selected for export.

  • List of Annotations... : Select the tiers (if Tiers by Name is selected) or tier types (if Tiers by Type is selected) from which the annotations are to be exported. Note that the annotations are not separated into words. Check Count occurrences if you want the list to include the number of occurrences for each annotation.

  • List of Words... : Select the tiers (if Tiers by Name is selected) or tier types (if Tiers by Type is selected) from which the annotations are to be exported and specify the token delimiters. Check Count occurrences if you want the list to include the number of occurrences for each token.

After clicking OK you are asked to enter a filename for the new file. Clicking Save will export the file.

Exporting tiers from multiple files

There could be situations in which you want to discard or select tiers from multiple .eaf files, for instance if you want to present a third party with a limited number of tiers. To do so, select File > Export Tiers from Multiple Files.... In the first dialog you can select the files from which you want to export a selection of tiers:

  1. Click on the Look in pull down box and browse to the directory that contains the annotation files.

  2. Double-click an annotation file (*.eaf) to select it. It now appears in the rightmost box. Alternatively, you can click on the annotation file name and click the >> button. You can also include a number of files at once by selecting multiple files and clicking the >> button.

  3. Click OK to continue the exporting process; otherwise click Cancel to exit the dialog window without exporting.

To export, do the following:

  1. Choose whether you want to select individual tiers or select tiers with specific linguistic types.

    1. If you want to select individual tiers, make a selection on the Tiers tab and select Export Selected Tiers in the Extra Options section.

      Figure 4.52. Exporting by selecting tiers

      Exporting by selecting tiers


    2. If you want to select tiers with specific linguistic types, select the appropriate types on the Linguistic Types tab and select Export Tiers With Selected Linguistic Types in the Extra Options section.

      Figure 4.53. Exporting by selecting linguistic types

      Exporting by selecting linguistic types


  2. In the Options section you can specify...

    1. whether to Export parent tiers of the selected dependent tiers automatically or to Only export dependent tiers if their parent tiers are selected.

    2. whether to Save files with original names of to Make use of suffixes. In case of the latter, you can specify whether to save the files with their original name followed by a suffix or to save the files with a new base name and followed by a suffix number.

    3. whether the files should be saved in the original directory, in a (possibly new) directory which is local for each files, or together in the same directory.

    4. whether of not ELAN should export files that result in having no tiers.

  3. Finally, click Export to export the .eaf files containing only the selected tiers.

Opening a wave file in Praat

ELAN offers the possibility to open wave files (or a part of them) in Praat[5]. To achieve this, follow the steps below:

  1. If desired, make a selection first (See the section called “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 and Sendpraat[6] program yet, you will have to locate them now in the file dialog

  5. The Praat program containing the wave file appears

Figure 4.54. 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.

Note for advanced users: compiling SendPraat on Linux

  • Make sure a C compiler (like gcc) is installed.

  • You will also need the X11 or Xorg development packages (they can be found in a package called xorg-x11-devel or something likewise)

  • Replace if0 with if1 in sendpraat.c, as described on http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/sendpraat.html

  • Link the executable with the X11 libraries when you compile Sendpraat:

    cc -o sendpraat sendpraat.c -L /usr/X11R6/lib -lX11

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 the section called “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 the section called “Re-open recently accessed files”), the Saving transcription dialog window appears, e.g.:

Figure 4.55. Save on exit

Save on exit


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

This behaviour differs from earlier ELAN versions. Therefore you will be warned when exiting. If you don't want this warning again the next time, check Don't show this message again and click on OK.

Figure 4.56. Exit behavior

Exit behavior




[1] From here on, every appearance of Shoebox can also be read as Toolbox, i.e. the newer version of what was formerly known as Shoebox.

[2] Synpathy is a tool for annotating, analyzing, and graphically editing the syntactical structure of sentences (e.g. Linguistically annotated text corpora), developed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. The application is based on the SyntaxViewer from the TIGER search project developed by the IMS (Institute für Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung, University of Stuttgart).

[4] For a description of this standard and players see http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/

[6] For downloads and installation instructions see http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/sendpraat.html.