ELAN (EUDICO Linguistic Annotator) is an annotation tool
that allows you to create, edit, visualize and search annotations for video and audio
data. It
is developed at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands,
with the aim to provide a sound technological basis for the annotation and exploitation
of
multi-media recordings. ELAN is specifically designed for the analysis of languages,
sign
languages, and gestures, but it can also be used by anyone who works with media corpora,
i.e.,
with video and/or audio data, for purposes of annotation, analysis and documentation.
ELAN supports:
- the display of speech and/or video signals, together with their annotations;
- the time linking of annotations to media streams;
- the linking of annotations to other annotations;
- an unlimited number of annotation tiers as defined by the users;
- different character sets;
- the export as tab-delimited text files and multiple other formats;
- the import of multiple file formats;
- search options.
This manual helps you to understand and use the features of ELAN.
Part I is the user's guide. It is organized around the
following topics:
- ELAN documents
- the screen display and the navigation through a document
- annotations
- working modes
- search options
Note
For each topic, basic information is given. Following that, the use of features is
explained in a step-by-step way. It is recommended that you read relevant chapters
before
starting to work with your own data.
Part II is the reference guide, it provides brief
information on the following topics:
- mouse options
- menu items
- shortcut keys
- key concepts of ELAN
An overview of the differences between the succeeding versions of ELAN can be found
online
via: https://archive.mpi.nl/tla/elan/release-notes.
The following notation conventions are used:
- Menu items, icons and screen displays are written in a bold typeface
(like this line).
- (Shortcut) keys are written in SMALL CAPS.
Note
Information on troubleshooting is marked with an icon like this one.