A screencast regarding this section is available on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/67896572
ELAN offers an option to search for an expression through multiple files. This search function searches for (whole) words within annotations to match the given query. To access it, go to Search > Search multiple eaf… This will open the following dialog box:
Figure 4.13. Searching through multiple annotation files
In order to perform a multiple file search, go through the following steps:
Define search domain
and do one of the following:
*.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.
Figure 4.14. Searching through multiple annotation files: result
The result window contains the following fields for every found annotation:
It is not possible to restrict the search results to a certain tier or to specify extra structural or temporal constraints.
The displayed search results can be exported to a tab-separated text file as well. The exported files are very similar to that described in Exporting the search results.
If you right click somewhere in the list ELAN shows a context menu with the following options:
Since version 4.7.0, you can now also search via FASTSearch. This method of searching is the same as the search function described in Searching through multiple annotation files. There is a difference on the back-end of the search function, which makes it a bit faster than the normal search function, especially when you have to search through a large amount of files.