ELAN7.1

ELAN lets users mark spoken or visual events in audio and video recordings and connect those marks to the relevant moments in the media. It supports an unlimited number of textual annotations, including sentences, individual words or glosses, comments, translations, and descriptions of anything observed in the recording. Annotations can be organized across multiple layers called tiers, with hierarchical relationships between tiers for representing related information.

Annotations may be aligned with media time, allowing detailed transcription and analysis of recordings. Several annotation views remain synchronized with the media timeline, so users can inspect the same material through different presentations while playback continues. A single annotation document can link up to four video files, which is useful for comparing synchronized camera angles or related footage.

ELAN suits researchers and practitioners working with language, speech, interviews, field recordings, and other audiovisual material that needs structured analysis. Playback relies on native media frameworks such as Windows Media Player, QuickTime, or VLC, so supported audio and video formats depend on the operating system, although high-performance playback can generally be achieved. The Java-based software is distributed for Windows, macOS, and Linux; the current 7.1 build is freeware for MacOS on Apple Silicon (arm64), and its source is available under the GPL 3 license.