ATLAS.ti works with more than twenty graphic file formats for Primary Documents, including the most popular such as BMP, JPEG, and TIFF. Scanners often produce TIFF and digital cameras usually create JPEG images. In addition, ATLAS.ti works also with many common (and not so common) audio and video formats, including WAV, MP3, WMA, AVI, WMV, MOV, MPG and many more.

The file size of multimedia files does not pose a problem for ATLAS.ti! Audio and video files up to several gigabytes can be assigned and analyzed without a problem. However, certain practical issues should be considered regarding the length (duration) of a multimedia clip.

Rich Text

Textual Primary Documents may contain arbitrary formatting, live web links, and embedded objects.

For Non-Western locales, ATLAS.ti also supports plain text formats like Unicode and DBCS (Double Byte Character Sets) in all text editors and in the primary document pane. However, you cannot currently create Unicode labels for codes, memos, network nodes, etc. It is also not possible to use Unicode in text searches.

Embedded Objects

Objects like Excel tables, images, PowerPoint slides, formulas, and audio or video files can be embedded in primary documents, comments, and memos. Most objects can be activated and edited within ATLAS.ti without separately opening the application that was used to create them.

The fragment shows an embedded formula in active mode with a floating formula editing toolbar.

Audio

ATLAS.ti supports most common audio formats (like WAV, MP3, WMA, SND, etc.), provided that the appropriate MCI drivers are installed, which is usually the case on most systems.

Audio Files and Transcriptions: ATLAS.ti is used very frequently to analyze recorded material. You can work very conveniently with both the audio source and full or partial transcriptions. In the typical scenario, only relevant passages are selected for transcription. These transcript fragments can then be linked to the corresponding audio segments using the ATLAS.ti hypertext function.

Video

ATLAS.ti supports most common video formats (like AVI, MPG, WMV, MOV, etc.). As with audio files, the necessary MCI drivers must be installed on the system .

When creating video documents that will be used in conjunction with ATLAS.ti, the issue of compression should be taken into account. While uncompressed video data allows fine-grained frame-level navigation, compressed formats may counteract any attempt to select specific frames. Some experimenting will be necessary in this case.

Note: ATLAS.ti’s multimedia capabilities are built upon the Windows Media Control Interface (MCI). To access multimedia files from ATLAS.ti, the corresponding MCI device drivers must be installed. While drivers for AVI and WAV files come pre-installed on most basic Windows systems (or at least after installing a sound adapter), formats like MOV, QT, AU, SND, MPG, and MP3 may require a dedicated driver or special configuration.