Something is not working / I think I've run into a bug
Please start by consulting the help section. Also make sure that you have installed the latest version of the tools.
Some problems in the current official version may have already been fixed in the latest preview.
If this does not help please contact us or the EXMARaLDA mailing list.
Describe the problem in as much detail as possible. Ideally, answer the following questions:
Which operation in which tool (e.g. Event > Split event in the Partitur-Editor) is causing the problem?
What is the problem? Which behaviour do you expect? Which behaviour do you get?
Can you reproduce the problem systematically?
Does the problem occur with one file only or with several files?
Does the problem occur on one computer only or on different computers?
What does the debug information of the tool say? You can get debug information via Help > About > Copy debug information. Paste this information into your mail.
Which operating system are you using?
In case the problem is related to an audio or video file: which player are you using? Which format does the audio/video file have?
Often, attaching a file with which the problem occurs can be useful for analysing the problem. Please give us a short feedback whether or not our suggestions have solved your problem.
How do I cite EXMARaLDA in my own work?
If you use EXMARaLDA in a publication or in a thesis, we ask you to cite both this website (www.exmaralda.org) and the most recent
publication presenting the system as a whole. Currently, the most recent such publication is:
Schmidt, Thomas and Wörner, Kai (2009) EXMARaLDA - Creating, analysing and sharing spoken language corpora for pragmatic research. In: Pragmatics (19:4), 565-582.
Do I need JAVA? How do I get it?
A JAVA Runtime Environment is needed for all EXMARaLDA tools. Where and how to get it depends on your operating system:
Windows (2000 or later): The latest runtime environment can be downloaded from Oracle's Java page.
Apple Mac OS X: Mac OS X comes with a built-in JAVA Runtime Environment. However, Apple does not provide JAVA updates for older OS versions.
Consult this page for further information.
Linux/Unix: Depending on your distribution, JAVA can be preinstalled on your system or not. If it is not, install the Sun/Oracle Java Runtime in its latest version using you package manager.
Partitur Editor
How can I operate playback via the keyboard or a foot pedal?
Alle keyboard shortcuts for the Partitur-Editor are listed in this document.
If you have a foot pedal, configure it to use the appropriate keyboard shortcut.
Why can't I see a waveform display?
In order to have a waveform displayed in the Partitur-Editor you need to associate an uncompressed WAV file with your transcription. If you have a file in WAV format and still get no waveform display, you may be using a compressed WAV file.
You can uncompress it using Audacity.
Why can't I play a certain audio or video file?
Make sure that the file specified under Transcription > Recordings is really present at the given location.
Then check whether the system player (Windows Media Player on Windows, Quicktime on Macintosh) can play the file.
If yes, check if choosing a different player for the Partitur-Editor (via Edit > Preferences > Media) resolves the problem.
On Windows, the DirectShowPlayer is the preferred option, on Macintosh the ELAN-Quicktime-Player.
On Windows, updating your codec library using the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP, http://www.cccp-project.net/)
can also solve the problem in many cases.
If that does not help, try converting your audio or video file to a different format (e.g. with the tool Super on Windows).
For further information, see also Audio_and_Video_support_in_EXMARaLDA.pdf.
Some symbols are not displayed properly (instead, a little box is displayed). Why?
You must format the tier in question with an appropriate font. One font which contains almost all existing symbols is
Arial Unicode MS.
Format the tier in question with this or another suitable font by selecting it and then choosing
Format > Format tier... . In order to change global font settings for formatting tiers go to
Edit > Preferences... > Fonts > Default Tier Font.
I have transcription data in a different format. Can I transform them to EXMARaLDA?
EXMARaLDA can import many formats, the following among them:
the CHAT format of the CLAN editor
the EAF format of ELAN
the FLK format of FOLKER
the TRS format of Transcriber
the TextGrid format of PRAAT
simple text files in certain formats
All import functionality is to be found under File > Import in the Partitur-Editor. Furthermore, EXAKT provides several wizards which help you to import whole corpora in a single step. Consult the Partitur-Editor manual, the EXAKT manual or the document How to import text transcriptions for further information.
Corpus Manager
I have a collection of transcriptions from the Partitur-Editor. How do I turn them into a corpus?
The easiest and quickest possibility is to use the wizard under File > Create corpus from transcriptions for this task.
The Coma manual and the document
How to create a corpus from transcriptions explain how to use this wizard.
EXAKT
I am looking for a documentation of the regular expression syntax used by EXAKT
EXAKT uses the JAVA syntax for regular expressions. The JAVA API documentation of the Pattern class documents this syntax.