To start ELAN, do the following:
The start window is displayed in which you can open different kinds of documents.
The main options in the File menu are:
*.eaf
) (Opening an existing document)
*.mpg
, *.wav
), but no annotation
file (*.eaf
, *.txt
) (Creating a new document).
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.
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.:
Do the following:
*.mov
) then select All Files in
the Files of type dropdown menu. If a media type is
supported depends on your software configuration.
*.mpg
,
*.mov
, *.wav
, etc.) to select it. It
now appears in the rightmost box. Alternatively, you can click on the media file
name and click on the >> button
afterwards.
*.etf
) to be
used:
An ELAN window containing the new document appears.
An ELAN document can have an author. To set the author, click Edit > Set Author.... Enter the name of the author and click OK.
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:
See 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.
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 Activating and deactivating the Bulldozer mode or Shift mode):
This process wont delete any annotation. If the annotations are shifted to the left, the maximum shift will be restricted by the leftmost annotation unit.
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:
Do the following:
*.eaf
).
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:
A convenient way to open a file that you have previously been working with is the File > Open Recent File dropdown menu.
If you open up several annotation files, you can get an overview of the currently opened documents under the Window dropdown menu:
Click on one of the files to activate it.
All documents can be saved as ELAN files (*.eaf
, “EUDICO
Annotation Format”). This includes documents that were created by ELAN itself (see
Creating a new document) as well as documents that were imported into
ELAN from Shoebox/Toolbox, CHAT or Transcriber (see Shoebox file, CHAT file or Transcriber files). To save a document as an ELAN
file:
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.
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:
If annotation units overlap with the selection, they will be shrunk until they fit within the selected interval.
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:
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:
See 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.
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:
The following options are available on the Linked Media Files tab:
*.eaf
file
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 Timeseries Viewer) is found here, but other files may be linked as well. The following options are available:
*.eaf
file
ELAN allows you to create automatic backup copies. To create backups, do the following:
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
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.
Through File > Page setup you can alter the paper size and other settings of the pages to be printed.
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.
Tiers settings
After choosing the desired font size, click on the Apply Changes button in the Print Preview window. After that, the changes will appear:
ELAN offers the possibility to open wave files (or a part of them) in Praat[1]. To achieve this, follow the steps below:
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
cc -o sendpraat sendpraat.c -L /usr/X11R6/lib
-lX11
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 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.
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.
To quit ELAN wand to close all opened windows, press CTRL+Q or do the following:
If you exit ELAN without having saved the changes (see Re-open recently accessed files), the Saving transcription dialog window appears, e.g.:
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.