Add a French language Text to TAPoR
This recipe takes a French language text and adds it to the TAPoR workspace for textual analysis.
This recipe ensures that the fundamental task of loading text into a text analysis environment is accomplished correctly. For proper analysis, the text must be interpreted by the computer in the same way in which you enter it, including accented characters. There are a variety of ways in which text can be encoded by operating systems and applications during text entry and storage. This recipe will ensure that your text has been entered and encoded properly for analysis and that you can enter search terms and parameters from your browser to complete analytical tasks.
This recipe is available as a PDF download.Ingredients
- An electronic text in the French language
- A List Words Tool such as TAPoR List Words Tool
- A Concordance tool such as the TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool
- A Text Editor capable of converting between character encodings
This recipe is applied to a sample text in Exercise to Add a French language Text to TAPoRSteps
- Prepare Text in an external editor to ensure that it is encoded correctly ;
or
- Confirm that the French language web page that you wish to use is encoded properly ;
- Log in to TAPoR;
- Add your encoded French language text file to MyTexts
;
- Generate a word list (sorted by frequency) using the TAPoR List Words Tool;
- Explore an accented word individually using TAPoR Find Words - Concordance Tool
Discussion
Text Editors
You may require a text editor to encode your text into UTF-8 or Latin-1 to maintain the accents and special characters in the textual language. On a Windows system, this can be done through NotePad and under Macintosh OSX through TextEdit. On Unix-based systems, you will find a text editor installed as part of the standard system install. Word processors typically provide a much deeper tool set for formatting text and generally save documents in their native format which is not appropriate for importing into a text analysis environment. However, they too can be used to save a plain text file with appropriate encoding by following the appropriate steps.- Instructions for saving as UTF-8 or Latin-1 using NotePad
- Instructions for saving as UTF-8 or Latin-1 using TextEdit
- Instructions for saving as UTF-8 or Latin-1 using MicrosoftWord
Web Page Encoding
To verify that the web page that you wish to import into TAPoR is encoded in either UTF-8 or Latin-1, you need to check the browser settings. In Internet Explorer, simply go to the View Menu and select the Encoding Option. This should read Unicode (UTF-8). On Firefox, the option is Character Encoding under the View menu. This should also read Unicode (UTF-8). If this is not the case, then you can manually select the encoding you wish to use from this menu. On other web browsers, the process should be similar. Please consult their help files for specific instructions on character encoding. If you view the page source for your web page, it may contain the HTML line:"<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"/>"Which will indicate that it is encoded properly for text analysis.
Glossary
- Text Encoding
- One of the most important aspects of the text input process is the encoding of the text which you are working with. It must be encoded as either UTF8 or Latin-1, which provides proper mapping of accented and other extended characters. See the links below for more background information on encoding processes. For example, when propoerly encoded the charcter 'e' is differentiated from the character 'é' and 'é' is not seen as the character 'e' + some symbol.
- UTF-8 (8-bit Unicode Character Encoding)
- Unicode character encoding is an evolution of the ASCII set to permit support of a greater number of alphanumeric characters including those with diacritical marks such as accents. More information on UTF-8 is available at:Wikipedia
- Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1)
- Latin-1 character encoding is an evolution of the ASCII character set to permit support of a greater number of alphanumeric characters including those with diacritical marks such as accents. It is being supplanted by the UTF-8 Character Encoding More information on Latin-1 is available at: Wikipedia
- MyTexts
- This is an area of the TAPoR in which you collect your private texts for analysis. It is also a portal to access publicly available texts which have been added by other users. In this area you can view the catalogue of texts available to you or add, edit, tag, and view the contents of specific texts.
Next Steps/Further Information
- List of All Recipes
- Exercise to Add a French language Text to TAPoR
- Help with Particular Tools
- Background on Text Analysis
- HyperPo Character Encoding Heuristics
- Orthoographic Diacritics
- Information about the TAPoR Concordance Tool
- Information about the TAPoR List Words Tool