ToBI Annotation Environment on WaveSurfer

This manual explains how to set up and use the ToBI Annotation Environment on WaveSurfer, both for running the examples and exercises in the "Guidelines for ToBI Labeling", and for doing ToBI labeling using a graphical user interface.

If you find an error or have suggestions, please send me e-mail to agus [at] cs.columbia.edu.

About WaveSurfer: Version 1.8.3 or higher of WaveSurfer required (available at http://www.speech.kth.se/wavesurfer/).

1. Setup

1. Locate the ".wavesurfer" directory created by the program.
   
   • On Windows it's usually something like:
     C:\Documents and Settings\Username\.wavesurfer\
   • On Linux it's usually ~/.wavesurfer/
2. Copy the 'preferences' file in .wavesurfer/1.8/
3. Copy 'ToBI.conf' in .wavesurfer/1.8/configurations/

Note: "1.8" is the version of WaveSurfer. If you have a more recent version, it might be 1.9, 1.10, 2.0, etc. Use the directory that you find in ".wavesurfer\".

2. Examples and Exercises

To open the examples and exercises in the "Guidelines for ToBI Labeling" (version 3.0, March 1997) follow these steps:

1. Choose File » Open.
2. Select the desired wav file from the "examples" or "exercises" directory.
3. When prompted for a configuration, choose "ToBI". If that option is not available, check that you have correctly copied the 'ToBI.conf' file in the correct directory (see the Setup section).

3. ToBI Labeling

Annotation Files

Each wav file has four annotation files in its same directory, with file extensions 'tones', 'words', 'breaks' and 'misc'. For example, 'sample.wav' would have these four optional associated annotation files:

• sample.tones
• sample.words
• sample.breaks
• sample.misc

To open a wav file and its ToBI annotations (if any) follow these steps:

1. Choose File » Open.
2. Select the desired wav file.
3. When prompted for a configuration, choose "ToBI". If that option is not available, check that you have correctly copied the 'ToBI.conf' file in the correct directory (see the Setup section).

If the annotation files are found, they are displayed in the corresponding tiers. Otherwise, the tiers of the missing files are left blank.

Therefore, to start labeling a wav file from scratch, just open the wav file after making sure that none of the annotation files exist in the same directory.

ToBI Labels

ToBI labels for the Tones, Break Indices and Misc tiers are inserted by clicking the right button of the mouse at the desired position, and selecting the corresponding label from the drop-down menu.