Reference Manual

Interface and commands description

Transcriber 1.4.4

DGA, April 2002


  1. Startup
    1. Working environment
    2. Starting the tool
    3. Initial configuration
  2. Windows
    1. Menu bar
    2. Transcription
    3. Button bar
    4. Signal and segmentation
  3. Transcription file
    1. Create a new transcription
    2. Read a transcription
    3. Save the transcription
    4. Export to another format
    5. Revert to previous version
    6. Automatic backup
    7. Backup file
    8. File encoding
  4. Signal file
    1. Open a signal file
    2. Sound file format
    3. Signal shape
    4. Open a remote file
  5. Signal management
    1. Position the cursor
    2. Select part of the signal
    3. Signal playback
    4. Segment playback
    5. Fast forward
    6. Go to next segment
    7. Change the sound level
    8. Vertical zoom
  6. Edition
    1. Cut/Copy/Paste
    2. Undo
    3. Find/Replace
    4. Glossary
    5. Automatic space handling
    6. Spell checking
    7. Accented characters and internationalization
  7. Episode
    1. Edit global parameters
  8. Segmentation
    1. Insert a boundary
    2. Suppress a boundary
    3. Move the boundary between two segments
    4. Select the signal over one or several segments
    5. Hide/Show a segmentation
  9. Speech turns and speakers
    1. Create a new turn
    2. Overlapping speech
    3. Edit or suppress a turn
    4. Find one speaker's turn
    5. Import speakers from another file
    6. Suppress unused speakers
  10. Sections and topics
    1. Create a new section
    2. Edit or suppress a section
    3. Find sections about a topic
    4. Import topics from another file
    5. Suppress unused topics
  11. Background noise
    1. Create a background mark
    2. Indicate the change or the end of a background noise
    3. Edit or suppress a background noise mark
  12. Events and comments
    1. Insert an event
    2. Insert the beginning and the end of an event
    3. Insert a comment
    4. Edit or suppress an event
    5. Copy/Paste an event
    6. Create a keyboard shortcut for an event
    7. Edit the event list
    8. Configure events display
  13. Keyboard shortcuts
    1. Define a shortcut
    2. Shortcut for currently used expression
    3. Shortcut for an event
  14. Options and interface configuration
    1. Transcriber's name
    2. Productivity monitoring
    3. Colors edition
    4. Fonts edition
    5. Localization of the interface
    6. Second signal view
    7. Show/Hide central button bar
    8. Save the options
  15. Other features
    1. Informations about the signal and the transcription
    2. Quit Transcriber
    3. Help


  1. Startup
    1. Working environment
    2. The software is meant to allow the transcription of long duration audio signals with standard hardware. For instance, several one hour long recordings (sampled at 16 kHz on 16 bits, mono) were already successfully transcribed with a PC/Pentium 200MHz under Linux. Using headphones is strongly recommended for a quality transcription, but loudspeakers may be useful for checking with other people.

    3. Starting the tool
    4. When Transcriber is correctly installed, it can be started with the command: or, depending on the configuration, by clicking a given menu or icon. A dialog box then proposes to select a sound file to create a new transcription associated with this signal, or a transcription file to display or modify it. A short example of signal with an associated transcription are available in the "demo" directory, distributed with the software.

      When the working configuration has been saved during a previous session, the current signal and transcription files are automatically opened if they are still available on the disk.

      It is also possible to start the tool and give it the signal and/or transcription file as arguments on the command line. If both files are in the same directory, have the same name (except for the extension) and if the signal file has a standard extension (like .wav or .snd), the name of the signal file can be omitted, as it will be automatically opened:

    5. Initial configuration
    6. After the first use of the tool, it is recommended to open the [Options]/[General...] menu and to fill in: and more signal specific options, in the menu [Options]/[Audio file...] : The options should then be saved with the menu [Options]/[Save configuration].


  2. Windows
    1. Menu bar
    2. Transcription
    3. In the upper side of the interface, the orthographic transcription of the signal can be typed in a text editor.

      Each segmentation begins at time t=0; there is at least a section, a turn and a segment on the first 3 lines of the transcription. The line containing the cursor is highlighted. There is a scrollbar to the right.

    4. Button bar
    5. In the middle, a button bar (which can be hidden) gives shortcuts for signal playback or for information display and shows the current filenames.

      Available commands:

    6. Signal and segmentation
    7. Signal and segmentation appear in the lower half; there is also a scrollbar for choosing the part of the signal to display and another smaller scrollbar (which can be hidden with a contextual menu) for resolution control. Under the signal, the segmentations (orthographic one, in speech turns, in sections, in background conditions) is displayed and synchronized with the signal; the current segment in the orthographic transcription is highlighted. A second view of the signal in a different resolution can be displayed. Current cursor position in the signal is shown with a vertical red bar. Both cursors (in the text editor and in the signal) are always synchronized so that the current segment in the text is the same as the current segment under the signal; as soon as one cursor enter another segment, the other one is automatically moved in order to appear in the same segment.

      On the signal, mouse controls are the following:

      On the segmentation lines, mouse controls are:


  3. Transcription file
    1. Create a new transcription
    2. Choose menu [File]/[New trans]. A dialog window ask for the sound file to be transcribed. This can be changed later.

    3. Read a transcription
    4. With [File]/[Open trans...], you can read transcription files produced by Transcriber, and transcription or segmentation files in some standard formats identified by the filename suffix:

      The signal file associated with the transcription is then searched for; if it is not automatically found, the user is asked to look for it.

    5. Save the transcription
    6. The transcription can be saved with menu [File]/[Save] if modifications occurred since creation or last save. The first time, transcription filename defaults to signal filename with .trs extension. It can be saved later under another name with [File]/[Save as...].

    7. Export to another format
    8. The transcription can be written into non-native transcription formats (.typ, .stm or .html) with menu [File]/[Export], but these formats are not as complete as the native one, and information can be lost in the process. However .html format makes printing the transcription possible using any browser.

    9. Revert to previous version
    10. Command [File]/[Revert] will undo all changes in memory and load lastly saved version on disk.

    11. Automatic backup
    12. An automatic backup is performed within a fixed time after a modification (if the transcription has not been saved in between). It is saved in the same directory as the transcription with the same name surrounded with # character (for example, /data/transcription/#radio.trs#). This file will be removed the next time the transcription is regularly saved. Time interval is given within window [Options]/[General...]; if it is zero, no automatic backup occurs.

    13. Backup file
    14. When a previously existing transcription is read on the disk, then modified and saved, the existing version is kept in a file with the same name as the transcription followed by a string given by the user in the window [Options]/[General...] (for example, ~ will /data/transcription/radio.trs~). If the field is empty, the previous file is not kept.

    15. File encoding
    16. Since Transcriber 1.4.1 under Tcl/Tk 8.1.1 or higher, the encoding for file output can be chosen in [Options]/[General...]. It defaults to ISO-8859-1 (Latin1) but can be changed to other widespread 8 bits encodings (ISO-8859-*, EUC-JP...) but also to Unicode (saved as UTF-8, which is backward compatible with 7 bits US-ASCII). If Latin1 does not work and you are not sure what to use, try UTF-8 as it supersedes the other ones.
      Upon reading, the encoding used is the one defined in the file header. For transcriptions missing this information (like the ones produced with earlier versions of Transcriber or Tcl/Tk), or when the encoding is not ASCII-compatible, the current encoding is used.


  4. Signal file
    1. Open a signal file
    2. The signal file is chosen after creation of a new transcription or by changing the signal linked to the transcription with menu [File]/[Open audio file...].

    3. Sound file format
    4. Most standard audio files are automatically recognized thanks to Snack library: WAV, AU, SND, AIFF, SMP, and Sphere if the format has been installed with Snack. Access to MP3 format can be slow due to the compression. Headerless sound files format (8 or 16 bits sample length, byte order...) is automatically guessed, except for sample frequency and channel count which are given by the user in the window [Options]/[Audio file...].

    5. Signal shape
    6. In order to speed up signal display at lower resolutions (display of intervals over than 30 seconds), a low-resolution shape of the whole signal is computed if the signal is longer than 30 seconds. Shape computation is performed in background the first time a signal is displayed, and is stored in a specific directory for subsequent uses. Current computation can be stopped, or the function can be disabled in [Options]/[Audio file...]. Background computation mode can be disabled. The directory for storing shapes is also given in [Options]/[Audio file...]; it can be a good idea to use a directory shared by all Transcriber's users but it must then be writable to all users in order to allow creation of new shapes.

    7. Open a remote file
    8. The client-server architecture for sound display and playback can be enabled by configuring the script tcl/SoundServer.tcl and launching it on the host. User choice of remote server and port is done within [Options]/[Audio file...].


  5. Signal management
    1. During transcription, one has to listen several times to short portions of signal. Tape-recorder-like commands are available in the command button bar as long as in the menu [Signal], but keyboard shortcuts will probably more practical for most intensive use.

    2. Position the cursor
    3. One can place the cursor in the signal with a mouse click on the wished position. A precise value can be given with menu [Signal]/[Go to...]/[Position] or by clicking on the information line under the signal.

    4. Select part of the signal
    5. Part of signal can be selected by click-move-release of the left mouse button, and it can be extended with central button (or shift-click of the left button). Cursor position and selection boundary times are given under the signal. With option Automatic selection playback option on in [Options]/[General...], selected segment playback starts as soon as mouse button is released.

    6. Signal playback
    7. With play and pause buttons, command [Signal]/[Play/Pause] or its shortcut Tab, one can start playback at cursor position or stop it. If a selection is active, only this part will be played.

      The menu [Signal]/[Playback mode] allows a choice between the following playback modes: continuous play (default mode), playback with pauses at segment boundaries, with a beep at boundaries, with a pause at the next boundary, or loop on the current selection if active, otherwise on the current segment after a pause. The duration of the pause and the selection of an audio file for the beep are customizable in the window [Options]/[Audio file...]; the parameter Go back before playing allows to rewind before each new playback.

      When Snack version 2.0 is installed with Transcriber, it is possible to play only the left or right channel from a stereo file using the new menu [Signal]/[Stereo channel]. It has no effects for mono sound files or when previous Snack version 1.7 is used.

    8. Segment playback
    9. Command [Signal]/[Play segment] or its shortcuts (Shift-Tab or Alt-Tab) launches playback of the current segment from its beginning up to its end.

    10. Fast forward
    11. Fast forward and backward buttons (menu [Signal]/[Go to...]/[Forward] or [Backward]) make the signal cursor move half a second forward or backward. If mouse button is kept down on the command button, move becomes continuous with 0.5 second step. This does even work during playback - but sound becomes choppy.

    12. Go to next segment
    13. Next and previous buttons (menu [Signal]/[Go to...]/[Previous] or [Next]) move cursor to the beginning of next or previous segment in the orthographic segmentation (even during playback which jumps to its new position).

    14. Change the sound level
    15. Sound level is given (from 0 to100) in the window [Signal]/[Control panel].

    16. Vertical zoom
    17. For signal with low dynamic, a cursor in [Signal]/[Control panel] changes vertical amplitude on the signal. Volume is not modified.


  6. Edition
    1. Cut/Copy/Paste
    2. Standard editing commands (menu [Edit]/[Copy], [Cut] or [Paste] and standard shortcuts Control-x/c/v) can be used to handle parts of the transcription, including events but not section, turn or background buttons.

    3. Undo
    4. Undo command (menu [Edit]/[Undo] or standard shortcut Control-z) is limited, and only restores orthographic transcription of the current segment to its previous state. A lot of actions are not undoable. Save often.

    5. Find/Replace
    6. Command [Edit]/[Find/Replace] (shortcut Control-f) has various options: case sensitive, backward search, use regular expressions. A replacement string can be given.

    7. Glossary
    8. Command [Edit]/[Glossary] or its shortcut Control-k has two modes: create a new entry in the glossary, or insert an existing entry in the editor at current position; modification of existing entries is possible in both modes. If part of the text is selected when the command is called, creation of a new entry is proposed from this selection; a comment can be added and choose OK in order to register it. If no text was selected, one can click and select an entry in the list then click Insert; the entry will be inserted in the current position. Glossary is currently kept within configuration file but will probably switch to a separate file in a future version.

    9. Automatic space handling
    10. Automatic space handling is controlled within [Options]/[General...]. If it is active, a space is added at the end of line upon creation of a new breakpoint and before punctuation symbols .,; or :.

    11. Spell checking
    12. Spell checking is started by the command [Edit]/[Spell checking]. It relies on the installation of the 'ispell' software (standard on most Unix systems but not with Windows). The dictionary used for the correction is automatically deduced from the language selected in the global options (cf 7.1). An error message indicates if the dictionary was not found or if the name does not match; it is then necessary to check your local installation of ispell to determine the correct name of the dictionary.

      When an unknown word is found, a dialog box proposes to:

      An option of the menu [Options]/[General] allows to control the spell checking on words starting with a capital letter. The default behavior is to ignore them.

    13. Accented characters and internationalization
    14. The character input method is not selected in Transcriber but is system-dependent. Thus, with an appropriate keyboard, some characters can be input directly. Unix system allows you to remap some keyboard keys (like for instance function keys) with software tools like 'xmodmap' for X11. However it is also possible to input accentuated characters from keys combinations by defining shortcuts in Transcriber (cf. section 13).
      The default encoding of transcription files is ISO-8859-1 (Latin1), but other encodings are available if Transcriber is run with a version of Tcl/Tk at least 8.1.1 (cf. section 3.8).


  7. Episode
    1. Edit global parameters
    2. Some global informations about transcription can be given in [File]/[Edit episode attributes...]:


  8. Segmentation
    1. Insert a breakpoint
    2. Command [Segmentation]/[Insert breakpoint] or its shortcut Return create a new breakpoint at current cursor position in the text and in the signal. Boundary positions are rounded to the nearest milli-second, so any new breakpoint must be at least 1 ms away from existing ones. A new line appears in the transcription, and segment is sliced at cursor position. This can be done during playback.

      =>

    3. Suppress a breakpoint
    4. Command [Segmentation]/[Delete breakpoint] or its shortcut Shift-Backspace suppress the breakpoint at the beginning of current segment and fold its content with previous segment. If the breakpoint was also the beginning of a new turn or a new section, they are also removed.

    5. Move the boundary between two segments
    6. By clicking with central mouse button (or with left button with Control key pressed) over a boundary between two segments and moving the mouse, one can move the boundary and the one which are synchronized in other segmentations.

    7. Select the signal over one or several segments
    8. With a click of the left mouse button over a segment under the signal, the signal is selected over the extent of the segment, and signal cursor moves at the beginning of the segment. The selection can be extended with Shift click of left button.

    9. Hide/Show a segmentation
    10. With a click of right button, a contextual menu appears and gives commands for signal playback, resolution, and showing or hiding each segmentation.


  9. Speech turns and speakers
    1. Create a new turn
    2. Command [Segmentation]/[Create turn...] or its shortcut Control-t creates a new speech turn from the beginning of current segment. A speech turn is described by it(s) speaker(s) and other optional parameters:

      First line of the window is for overlapping speech (see next section). Central part is for creation, selection or modification of speakers. By clicking on Create Speaker or by typing directly a new name, a new speaker is created; one can further describe its type, dialect... A sorted list of already defined speakers appears to the right, with a selection of recently used speakers. By clicking on a name, the speaker is chosen as speaker for the turn. Spelling of its name and other characteristics can be modified after a click on Modify Speaker, and then validating with OK; the changes will apply to the whole transcription. The field no speaker can be chosen for signal segments without speech.

    3. Overlapping speech
    4. During creation or modification of turn parameters, overlapping speech can be activated. Second speaker can be chosen the same way as the first one. In the text editor, each segment contains 2 lines beginning with 1 or 2; orthographic segmentation under the signal is split horizontally for each speaker. Return to non-overlapping speech is done by deactivating the overlapping speech field in turn parameters; only first speaker is kept and transcriptions of both are merged in one single text.

    5. Edit or suppress a turn
    6. Command [Segmentation]/[Edit turn attributes...] allows for edition and destruction of the speech turn which contains current segment (even if the current segment is not the first segment of the turn). Alternatively, one can click on the turn button in the editor window. All parameters given during creation can be modified. A button allows destruction of the turn.

    7. Find one speaker's turns
    8. Command [Edit]/[Speakers]/[Find speaker] displays the list of speakers in the transcription. By clicking on the name, number of occurrences of this speaker in the transcription is shown under the list. Next button moves to the next speech turn of the speaker.

    9. Import speakers from another file
    10. Command [Edit]/[Speakers]/[Import from file...] asks for a transcription file and displays the list of speakers within this file which doesn't yet exist in the current transcription. User can select/unselect speakers by clicking on its name, or select one speakers which Global name field is on.

    11. Suppress unused speakers
    12. Command [Edit]/[Speakers]/[Remove unused speakers] suppress any speakers which doesn't appear in any speech turn.


  10. Sections and topics
    1. Create a new section
    2. Command [Segmentation]/[Create section...] or its shortcut Control-e creates a new section at beginning of current segment. Section type ("report", "filler" or "nontrans") and topic can be chosen in the dialog window. Already defined topics list is on the right, recently used ones are on the left. Click New topic or type in directly a text to define a new topic. If an existing topic is selected, one can click Modify topic and edit it, then choose OK. You can choose no topic or empty the Topic field. A new speech turn is automatically created at the beginning of the section; the current speaker is proposed as default value.

    3. Edit or suppress a section
    4. Command [Segmentation]/[Edit section attributes...] allows edition and suppression of the section which contains the current segment. One can also click on the chosen section button in the text editor. All section parameters can be modified, and a button allows for section destruction.

    5. Find sections about a topic
    6. Command [Edit]/[Topics]/[Find topic] displays a list of already defined topics. Click on a topic and its count will appear under the list. Next button moves to the next section about the topic.

    7. Import topics from another file
    8. Command [Edit]/[Topics]/[Import from file...] ask for a transcription file and displays a list of new topics. User can select/deselect topics by clicking on their name.

    9. Suppress unused topics
    10. Command [Edit]/[Topics]/[Remove unused topics] suppress unused topics from the list.


  11. Background noise
    1. The segmentation in acoustic conditions if for lasting modifications in background noises. The marks are for a change in background state; their value replace the previous one. Each transcriptions begins with an empty background condition at t=0.

    2. Create a background mark
    3. Command [Segmentation]/[Insert background] creates a background mark at current cursor position in the signal. It is not allowed to create two marks at the same time index. If the cursor in the signal is at the beginning of the segment, background mark will always be synchronized with segment beginning, and background icon appears at the beginning of line. Background type (speech, music, electric noise, other) is chosen; value defaults to previous one. A music icon appears in the editor at current position of the cursor. Background segmentation under the signal is colored (grey default color) on signal parts with noise.

    4. Indicate the change or the end of a background noise
    5. Create at the position of the end of noise a new background mark with all noise types empty. For a noise change, don't mark the end of the previous noise, but only the new one which replaces the previous one.

    6. Edit or suppress a background noise mark
    7. Background noise marks can be edited or suppressed by clicking on the music icon in the editor. If it is deleted, current background conditions become the ones defined in the previous background mark.


  12. Events and comments
    1. Insert an event
    2. Command [Edit]/[Insert event] or Control-d pops up a window for defining:

    3. Insert the beginning and the end of an event
    4. If a part of text is selected before the insertion of the event, beginning and end of event marks are simultaneously inserted

    5. Insert a comment
    6. [Edit]/[Insert comment] inserts a comment event. Comments have no temporal extent.

    7. Edit or suppress an event
    8. Click on the event in the text editor and edit or destroy the event. Events can also be deleted in the text editor like a single character.

    9. Copy/Paste an event
    10. Within Transcriber, events can be copied/pasted. When pasted in other applications, event marks will appear as XML tags.

    11. Create a keyboard shortcut for an event
    12. See shortcut section

    13. Edit the default event list
    14. Noise list, pronunciation marks, lexical marks or language list can be edited with [Options]/[Events]/[Edit * list...]. Value will appear in the editor and in the segmentation; description appears in the menu with list of predefined events. An empty line is a separator in the menu. For language list, iso639 codes should be used for consistency.

    15. Configure events display
    16. Fonts and colors for event display can be modified with menus [Options]/[Fonts]/[Events] and [Options]/[Colors...] ; format string for comment and events, and for event extent are chosen in window [Options]/[Events]/[Events display...].


  13. Keyboard shortcuts
    1. Menu [Options]/[Bindings...] pops-up a window for edition, suppression or creation of bindings.

    2. Define a shortcut
    3. Click New in [Options]/[Bindings...] for creation of a new shortcut, then type in keyboard combination in the first field, replacement string in the second and click OK (end of edition) or Modify (before other editions). Keyboard combination can be directly typed with Control, Shift, Alt... if cursor is in the Keystrokes field. Be careful, you can override predefined menu shortcuts.

    4. Shortcut for a currently used expression
    5. Select currently used expression with mouse in the text editor, then choose menu [Options]/[Bindings...], give wished Keystrokes and click OK. Shortcut can also consist in the first letters of the expression, e.g. "gor" will be replaced with "Gorbatchev". These shortcuts are not related to the glossary.

    6. Shortcut for an event
    7. Events (noise, comment, etc.) can be generated with a shortcut. Create an event of the wished kind in the text editor, select it and follow the previous instructions. Selected text can be any combination of regular text and one or several events.


  14. Options and interface configuration
    1. Transcriber's name
    2. Default transcriber's name is given in [Options]/[General...]. It is used in episode parameters initialization when creating a new transcription.

    3. Productivity monitoring
    4. A filename for transcriber's productivity monitoring can be given in [Options]/[General...]. By default, the field is empty and function is disabled. When it is active, work duration is traced (without pauses), as long as produced work (number of new sections, turns, words...); it is displayed in window [File]/[Informations] and saved in the logging file at the end of the session. No automatic exploitation of these file is currently performed by the software.

    5. Colors edition
    6. Most colors can be modified with menu [Options]/[Colors...].

    7. Fonts edition
    8. Fonts used for text display are modified with menu [Options]/[Fonts].

    9. Localization of the interface
    10. Language for the interface is chosen in [Options]/[General...]. It defaults to English, and French is available. Localization in new language can be created. When no localization is available, the original English message is kept. As soon as non-localized messages are displayed, they are added to the list of messages to be localized. In order to keep your localization, give a Localization file name in [Options]/[General...] and choose [Options]/[Save configuration].

    11. Second signal view
    12. Menu [Options]/[Display]/[Second signal view] shows or hide a second view of the signal, which can be displayed at another resolution. Resizing the window can be necessary for a correct display.

    13. Show/Hide central button bar
    14. Central button bar display is switched on/off with [Options]/[Display]/[Command buttons].

    15. Save the options
    16. Modified options, window positions, keyboard shortcuts, glossary content and currently edited filenames are saved with command [Options]/[Save configuration] in a configuration file (defaults to ~/.transcriber); this file is read at startup and currently edited files will be automatically reopen at beginning of next session.


  15. Other features
    1. Informations about the signal and the transcription
    2. Button or command [File]/[Informations] displays a window with informations about signal filename, duration, word count, etc. Click update button for an update of the informations.

    3. Quit Transcriber
    4. Menu [File]/[Quit] or Control-q ; save of the transcription is proposed if necessary. If corresponding option is activated, save of the configuration is also proposed.

    5. Help
    6. Online help is available with menu [Help] ; help files can also be viewed with any HTML browser with frames