How to modify the boundaries of all annotations of selected tiers
It can occur that you want to modify the start and/or end times of all annotations of one or more tiers with the same amount of milliseconds. If e.g. the start of annotations is such that playing the interval of an annotation often misses the very first part of the audio of the utterance, it is best to move the start time of each annotation a bit to the left. Such annotations could e.g. have been created by a recognizer which made the boundaries of segments a bit too "tight".
This function can be started via and involves two steps.
File and Tier Selection
If an annotation document is open, the single file option is active. In the multiple file situation (see the section called “Modify boundaries of all annotations” and are active. When tiers are loaded in the table, select one or more tiers to process and click .
Specification of start and/or end time modification
There are two main options in this step:
: the two textfields allow to enter the amount of modification of the begin and end time, in number of milliseconds. A negative value, e.g.
-200, moves the boundary to the left, a positive value to the right. If the entered values are not the same, the duration of the annotations will change as well as a result of the modification. (If the values are the same, it might be better to use the option, in the single file case).: here it is possible to specify whether the modification of an annotation may or may not change the boundaries of the neighbouring annotations. If e.g. the checkbox is selected, a change of the begin time of one annotation (with a negative value, moving the begin boundary to the left) is allowed to change the end time of the annotation left of it or before it. If the checkbox is not selected, a boundary is only allowed to change as much as there is "empty space" before it.
Annotations are processed from left-to-right and, depending on the selected options, the processing of one annotation may alter the next annotation before it is processed itself. For predictable results, in some cases it is best to perform the modifications in two rounds, once for the begin times, once for the end times.
Figure 300. Modify boundaries of all annotations of selected tiers
Click to apply the modifications.