ELAN Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

ELAN is a software tool designed to annotate audio and video recordings efficiently. It enables users to add unlimited textual annotations, such as sentences, words, glosses, translations, comments, or descriptions of observed features, directly to media files. Annotations can be created on multiple tiers, which can be hierarchically interconnected, allowing for complex structuring of data. Each annotation can be time-aligned with the media or linked to other annotations, providing flexibility in how information is organized and analyzed.

Key Features include support for multiple annotation tiers, tier hierarchy creation, integration with Controlled Vocabularies, and the ability to link up to four video files with a single annotation document. ELAN also supports high-performance media playback using native frameworks like VLC or Windows Media Player, depending on the operating system. Annotations are stored in XML format (EAF), ensuring compatibility and long-term preservation of data.

Ideal for linguists, researchers, and media analysts seeking to organize and analyze multimedia content, ELAN facilitates efficient collaboration by allowing annotations to be shared and edited across teams. Its robust feature set supports detailed analysis, making it a valuable tool for projects requiring precise and structured annotation workflows.

ELAN is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and can be installed via winget. It is open-source, with its code accessible under the GPL 3 license, ensuring transparency and adaptability for diverse use cases.