7 replies to this topic

[DutchVL]

I would like to see RM allow having a media file open along with a note, into which users can transcribe the contents of the media file.

For example, I have downloaded a marriage record and want to transcribe its information into the note associated with that person's marriage.

As far as I am aware, I can have only one window open in RM at a time.

[Jerry Bryan]

RM does need to be able to have more than one window open at at time. But even if it had this capability, I think I would continue to transcribe in a different way. Namely, I transcribe into a Notepad window, then copy and paste from there into a note in RM. It seems like a better environment to work in for transcription than does an RM note Window. And it already means that I have two windows open at the same time.

 

Also, you can link things like marriage records into RM as files instead of images. If you do it that way, the image will open in a separate window in the program of your choice instead of opening in RM. That's another way to get multiple windows. The only downside is that images entered into RM as files cannot be printed by RM in scrapbooks. But for documents, I have never needed to print them from RM. It's only photos that I need to print from RM.

 

Jerry

[Renee Zamora]

If you want to transcribe inside of RootsMagic expand the Media Properties screen all the way. Then zoom into the document and transcribe into the description field. 

[Trebor22]

While I agree it would be nice to have this option in RM its one of those tasks where I just use an alternative intended for the job, Transcript,  see  - http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/

[Renee Zamora]

Another program is GenScriber - http://www.genscribe...bout_genscriber

 

Even though I have other programs I seem to just use Personal Historian to transcribe into while viewing the image. Then copy and paste from there. I use Personal Historian as my Research Log so its going there anyways. 

[Vyger]

Should the transcription or photo reverse notes not also be contained in the image metadata where they belong?

[Jerry Bryan]

Should the transcription or photo reverse notes not also be contained in the image metadata where they belong?

 

You know, that's a good question and I don't know the answer.

 

I usually put document transcriptions in two places and sometimes three. The two basic places are into a fact note in RM and into a source/citation note for that fact in RM. As a source/citation note, the transcriptions follow all the citations around, not just the fact basic fact note for the data. For example, I have a birth certificate fact and a death certificate fact, etc. The initial citation goes with that fact, and then is memorized and pasted to related facts such as birth and death themselves. The third place is that sometimes I create a TXT file with the transcription and the TXT file is in the same folder and with the same name except for the file extension as the image file itself.

 

In the case of photos, I tend to make a second copy of the image in a lossless file format (usually PNG), expand it with white space at the bottom, and annotate the photo in the white space. Unless the image file is some sort of layered format, this annotation just becomes pixels and is not really text anymore. This technique is sort of like writing on the back of a photo that's printed on paper except it prints on the "front" of the photo - in the added white space at the bottom.

 

For whatever reason, I have not done the same sort of annotation with image files of documents as I do with photos, so my document transcriptions are somewhat separated from the document itself. Another place to store the the transcriptions would be in formally defined metadata fields that are defined for many types of image files. My concern here is that such metadata fields tend to be poorly supported by software that displays and edits image files, and therefore the metadata can be totally invisible to the user and can easily be lost. I'm not familiar with any of the annotation tools mentioned in this thread, and they may address some of my concerns about the image metadata being invisible and/or lost.

 

Jerry

[Vyger]

I do also transcribe to Citation but I like text aligned to the media to remain with the file, it also facilitates searching outside Rootsmagic or other third party programs.