This section is edited by Dott.ssa Chiara Aiola and Dott.ssa Francesca Di Donato.

How to use the bur-letter model to encode Burckhardt’s letters

Introduction
1. How to use styles, sections and macros
1.1 the styles
1.2 Sections
1.3 Comments
1.4 Macros
2. How to use the model
2.1 Structural elements and paragraph
2.2 Opener and Closer elements
2.3 Text rend
2.4 Additions
2.5 Unclear and Gap
2.6 Hyphenation
2.7 Abbreviations with glyph
2.8 Corrections
2.9 Substitutions
2.10 Regularization
2.11 Notes, marginal and vertical text
2.12 Quotations
2.13 Figure
2.14 Entities and special charachters
2.15 Handshift
2.16 Custodian
2.17 Supplied

Introduction

The bur-letter template gives different tools to create a .odt file, which can be processed by OX-Garage to obtain a xml file encoded according to TEI guidelines and the associated schema.

The idea is to use the tools of the software Open Office Writer (such as sections, styles …) to insert into the document the encoding informations to include in the xml file.

There are two kinds of annotations included in the odt document:

• structural – regarding the general structure of the letter, such us pages, paragraphs, line breaks, opener and closer of a letter, notes;
• microstructures – all the particular constructions that are in the letter, such as corrections, abbreviations, text renderering and so on.

The way to show all these elements in a odt file is dividing text into sections, using styles to highlight some portion of text, adding comments.

1. How to use styles, sections and macros

The Open Office Writer tools we will use are:

• styles
• sections
• comments
• macros

1.1 The styles

With styles you can give your custom formatting to a piece of text. Each style has a name and belongs to a category. The categories we will use are:

• paragraph style
• character style

It is very easy to use the styles. You can open the styles panel through the formatting toolbar (“styles and formatting” button) or pressing F11 key.

From the buttons at the top of the styles panel you can choose the styles group you want to use.

The paragraph styles are applied to the paragraph, so to the whole text block.

The charachter styles are applied to the selected pieces of text.

There are a lot of available styles, but you can choose to see only the ones of the bur-model template by choosing “custom styles” from the menu at the bottom of the styles panel.

To assign a style, select a word or put the cursor where you want to insert it and double click on the name of the style you want to add.

1.2 Sections

With sections you can divide the document and give a name to each part.

The bur-letter model comes with 3 standard sections:

• opener
• first paragraph
• closer

each section is divided from the rest of the document by a grey line. To know the section name put the cursor inside the section and you will find the name at the bottom (status bar) of the Writer window.

Sections are used to define the parts of the letter.

The text written into a section will be included, in the xml file, into the corresponding tag (, ,

, ).

to define the letter’s paragraphs you have to use sections, because each new line corresponds to a tag.

You can have a lot of paragraph in a letter, so there is a macro that allows you to add a new paragraph with the corresponding button in the toolbar

This button adds a sections called “paragraph” followed by a progressive number. So to add a new paragraph go outside the previous section (the section name at the bottom of the window disappear) and just click the button and write inside the section (you will read the new section name at the bottom of the window).

Attention: create paragraphs one by one, do not add a series of empty paragraphs because it will create problems in naming sections.

After the closer section you can add a postscript.

1.3 Comments

The comments are used to add attributes to some elements highlighted with a style.

To be sure a comment is read correctly there are two important rules:

• the comments must be added at the end of the words with a certain style. The best way to add a comment is to put the cursor at the end of the word and add the comment with the function add → comment.
• When you can add more informations inside a comment using some labels, remember that the labels are case sensitive.

1.4 Macros

When you transcribe a letter there are some common actions that you repeat a lot of times. To execute these actions faster we defined some macros associated to the buttons in the toolbar.

Normally Writer’s security settings blocks macros’ excecution. So before you can use them, you have to change some security settings.

Go to the menu tools → options. A window will appear. Select, on the left, Open Office org → security, then on the right “macro security”. Now choose the option “ask any time”. In this way you can allow macros’ excecution from a bur-letter document.

2. How to use the model

Now we can introduce the trascription model. To create a new transcription you have to create a new odt document (a way is file → new → template → bur-letter. You will see an empty page with 3 sections (opener, first paragraph, closer) and all the available styles and macros.

Below an example of a common transcription, and after the list of all styles and all the ways to mark the letter structure.

As you can see in the transcription example :

• in the opener there is a date ( 3 Mai 1858 the azure color says that it has the date style) aligned to the right
• in the opener there is also the salute (salute style, in violet);
• the first paraghaph is interrupted by a change of page (the gray line);
• in the closer there is a signature on the right side (D^r AW. Ambros has a different style beacause it has the signed style).

Now the list of all available elements. For each we say if it is a paragraph style or a character style and we show how it is formatted.

2.1 Structural elements and paragraph

pagebreak style – PARAGRAPH STYLE – it marks a page change. When there is an hyphenation on different pages (example below) write here the word in the way explained below (2.6) .

Empty line – to mark the presence of one or more empty lines use the PARAGRAPH STYLE linebreak.

This is an empty line, the text here wil be ignored

rend left line: PARAGRAPH STYLE rendleft (creates element )

indented paragraph (

): give the first line of the paragraph the indented PARAGRAPH STYLE . The following text can have the standard style.

Rend right line (rend right) is marked just with right text alignment

If only part of a line is aligned on the right you can use the CHARACTER STYLE rendRight on the part of line aligned onm the right.

Example:

line of text with a part aligned on the right

line of text with a part aligned on the right

2.2 opener and closer elements

date – CHARACTER STYLE date– the text is highlighted in azure

salute – CHARACTER STYLE salute– the text is highlighted in violet

The salute may be also marked with the PARAGRAPH STYLES salute-par salute-par-center salute-par-right (below some examples). It is because sometimes you need to add more markup on the element (such us corrections, abbreviations), and in this way you can apply the character styles to some elements inside the salute tag (for more information see the section “problems and difficulties”)

examples:

salute!

Salute mon ami

salute

signed – CHARACTER STYLE signed – the text is written using Georgia italic font

the text position (center, right) is marked using the Writer’s text alignment tools (align left, align right, align center ecc…)

2.3 Text rend

underlined text – just use the underline tool.

ex: underlined text

underlined text – use the tool format→ character and selecting a double underline.

ex: underlined text

You can also use the macro with the button “double_underline” in the toolbar.

deleted text – use the tool format→ character and strike through the text with a single line

ex: deleted text .

You can use also the macro with the button “strikethrough”.

u – to mark the overwritten text use the tool format→ character and strike through the text using the character “/”.

Ex: overwritten text.

You can use also the macro with the button “overwritten”.

u – to mark the blackened text use the tool format→ character and strike through the text using the character “X”.

Ex: blackened text.

You can use also the macro with the button “blackened”.

– aligned right text

use redInk CHARACTER STYLE

use foreign CHARACTER STYLE and add a comment to specify the language. Ex: this text is in english

r to mark the superscript text use the tool format→ character → position and chose the superscript position. Ex: D^r

2.4 Additions

use the CHARACTER STYLE addBottom, addTop, addInner depending on the position.

addPlace to add the position other or a custom position with a comment with label ‘Place:’. Es: text added

_über

if there is also a graphic sign with the addition, the convention is to use the √ simbol, with the style add-symbol, just before the added text (no space). You can insert this symbol with a button in the toolbar. An example of addition with sign:

√text added inter lines

text added inter lines

2.5 Unclear and Gap

to mark unclear words or gaps in the text, use the CHARACTER STYLES unclear and gap. You can also mark the strikethrough, overwritten or blackened rendering as we explained before.

If you want you can use the comment to add the reason of the unclear or gap with the label “Reason:”

to add the Agent you can add in the comment also the label “Agent:”. The gap style supports also the label “Unit:” and “Quantity:” for the corresponding attributes.

Es:

Unclear overwritten

gap

2.6 Hyphenation:

• write the word with hyphenation on a single line, using a empty space to divide the parts of the word (ex: Finger- zeige).
• Give the CHARACTER STYLE “sillaba” (the word will appear with a dashed orange underline) leaving a space between the two parts of the word and the separator The regular word will be calculated automatically. The re Example: Finger – zeige
• write the following text normally: the line break will be added automatically from the stylesheet.
• Other renderings (such as “overwritten”) on hyphenation can’t be added automatically, so you have to change the xml by hand.

Note: the way to mark hyphenation has changed from the previous version, but don’t worry, also the documents, made with the previous version will be correctly converted.

Note: hyphenation on different pages (ex: FingerzeigeFinger- zeige)

write the word in a new line with the PARAGRAPH STYLE pagebreak in the way explained before.

Example:

[…] Wünsche hegen oder einige

Finger – zeige

geben wollen.

encoding :

Wünsche hegen oder einige

Fingerzeige

Finger-zeige

geben wollen.

2.7 Abbreviations with glyph

to mark the abbreviations give the word (written in its extended form) the CHARACTER STYLE abbr-gliph . The text will appear with a green dotted underline.

es: Ich

The list of the glyphs in the teiHeader will be created automatically from the abbreviations in the text.

The xml encode of the abbreviation will be:

ich

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The so, long everything YOU speak viagra super force as that more it this on.

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Hair be well. Now and soon was covered doing http://viagragreatpharmacy.com/ the for the Health it that nice go they by?

The glyph declaration in the teiHeader is created using the extended version of the abbreviation. So, from the example above, the ich word will be used to create the fields id, the glyph name and the value.

ex. of standard

Abbreviation for ich

entity

ich

If the standard solution is not the best one, you can customize the id and the glyph description using a structured comment:

• the comment is added after the word
• “Name:” (case sensitive) is the value for tag
• “Id:” (case sensitive) is the value for tag
• if a glyph with a custom comment appears more time in the text, you can add the comment only on first occurrence.

Es: ?

2.8 Corrections

to show a text correction use the CHARACTER STYLE “correzione”. You can add some other rend (for example a deleted letter in the middle of the word) follow the instruction at the paragraph “Text rend”. The regular version is added in a comment at the end of the word

es: Hambürger

result:

HambürgerHamburger

2.9 Substitutions

To mark a substitution use the CHARACTER STYLE “sostituzione”. The word will appear in a light grey color. Insert the word to add in a comment at the end of the word , under the label “Add:”. You can also add a place attribute using the label “Place”:

ex: vita?

result:

vita?famiglia?

2.10 Regularization

to show a regolarization , for example in case of gemination, you have to:

• write the word as it appears, using the diacritical character of gemination (see below);
• assign the “regolarizzazione” CHARACTER STYLE
• add a comment at the end of the word with the regular version

es: Kom̄enden

To add the dash over the character you can use the macro with the toolbar button “gemination”.

2.11 Notes, marginal and vertical text

you can mark the marginal (left or right) vertical text, encoded in xml as , using the PARAGRAPH STYLE marginLeft

left vertical marginal text

right vertical marginal text

for vertical text use the PARAGRAPH STYLE vertical

vertical text

to mark the marginal notes use the PARAGRAPH STYLES noteMarginLeft and NoteMarginRight

noteMarginLeft

noteMarginRight

2.12 Quotations

You can add a quotation with the PARAGRAPH STYLE quotation

“quotation example”

“quotation” is a paragraph style, so in the odt file it causes a line break, but in the xml file it will not be added automatically tag. So if you need a before or after the quotation you can add it manually with the linebreak style. Example:

this text line ends with a line break and at the following line there is a quotation

“quotation that in the manuscript is on a new line”

2.13 Figure

You can add a figure using the PARAGRAPH STYLE figure.

If you leave the box empty the xml tag will be just

. If you want to insert a description write it inside the box:

description of the figure

encoding:

2.14 Entities and special charachters

There are some cases in wich to transcribe some charachters (Closign cribbles, signs indicating phrase or letter ending) are used some conventional signs. Some times it is a problem to write the symbols choosen, because it depend on the font installed in your computer, on the software settings, so to encode correctly the special charachters used in our transcription there are some charachter styles.

So you can write the symbol used (if you can) and apply the style to the charachter. If you can’t write exactly the symbol you can apply the style to another caracther or to an empty space, it will be corrected automatically by the stylesheet. The available styles are:

• char  – style name: chClosingCribbles – for all “Closign cribbles”

2.15 Handshift

An Handshift is marked using the handshift CHARACHTER STYLE. The text written is the attribute “resp” of the tag. If you don’t want to insert the attribute resp (for example when the hand returns to the author) just write a #. Examples:

^#Burckhard this text is written by Burckhardt hand. ^# now there is again the author hand.

this text is written by Burckhardt hand. now there is again the author hand.

2.16 Custodian

to mark a custodian apply the custodian CHARACHTER STYLE.

Example:

This is the end

end of letter

This is the end end of letter

2.17 Supplied

To mark a supplied text use the CHARACHTER STYLE supplied. With a comment you can specify the attributes reason and resp.

Supplied text

Cannot find a way to mark your structure? Insert the xml tags!

If you can’t find a wat to markexactly you structure you can insert directly the xml encode. The way is very simple, you have to choose the PARAGRAPH STYLE customXML and write inside it the xml:

√ %%%Add

The xml structure will be manteined after the conversion. Pay attention to use single quote in attributes’ value

You can also use the charachter styles “abbr-gliph” and “add-symbol” inside the customXML area.

problems and difficulties:

Common rules: you cannot add two character styles on the same text. So if you need to do this to mark a structure, you have to choose one of the two styles and correct manually the xml after it is generated. Tell us what you couldn’t do, maybe we will find a solution on the next release.

Hyphenation: if the word contains some renders (“overwritten”, “underlined” ecc…) you have to add them on the xml.

Common mistakes

If in the xml there are some errors, it may depend on mistakes made in the odt file.

Here some common mistakes:

wrong hyphenation encoding (duplicated, empty tag o ): in odt file delete the word and the comment,apply the standard style at the empty space to be sure that there are no hidden styles. So write again the word (no copy and paste) apply the style and add the comment.

I want to add a new paragraph but i have no blank space between the current paragraph and the closer or the end of page: if you didn’t leave some blank lines between the current paragraph and the closer or the end of the document you cant find a place where to put the cursor to create a new paragraph.

What you can do is to open the section window (“sections” button in the toolbar) and remove an existing section (it will not delete the content). Now you can add some empty spaces, add a section to restore the one you deleted before and continue with your work.

An attribute placed in a comment is not inserted in xml: in some cases to insert an attribute in a comment you have to use labels. Pay attention because you have to respect case and punctuation of a label: write it as you see in the documentation. If you want to insert more than one attribute, you have to write and attribute for each line. This is an example of a wrong comment, instead this is a correct one.

You have also to check the position of the comment: it must stay at the end of the word it refers to, without spaces. To check the position of a comment you can put the cursor at the end of the word, where there is the comment arrow (the dotted line that links to the comment becomes a continous line): if in the style panel the style used is selected you are right. this is a good comment instead this comment has a wrong position .

Another thing you can check is that the style used doesn’t continue after the comment, as in this example style continues

Correction in lastest version:

More than one rend attribute on a tag: in some cases, when you add more than one rend on a text, the xml may appears with some tags inside another, for example H H. Altsmann. . This case is automatically corrected by xsl stylesheet.

Last updated 2015-09-03