Comments and markers: notes right at the word

When you listen back, you often notice not only transcription errors but also points of content: statements by a speaker contradict each other, contain striking features, or raise further questions. A comment holds such considerations exactly where they belong: on the word, not unsorted on a separate document.

This article shows you how to add comments, mark spots quietly with symbols, resolve open comments, assign colors, and take everything along into the export.

Add a comment

Recording Mr. M. (v. Miller, F.)

Review the transcript and click any word to correct it.

Review

20:42 / 47:36

5 s. 1×

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Interviewer :

Good, then I would now like to talk with you about the reason for your report. It is very important to me that you describe everything the way you remember it.

Mr. M. :

So just what happened?

Interviewer :

Exactly, at your own pace. As much as you remember, as well as you remember it.

Mr. M. :

I was out, I mean, it was a Tuesday, early in the morning. It was still dark and it had been raining. I had been to the supermarket, the big one on Hall Street.

Interviewer :

And what happened after that?

Mr. M. :

I was just in front of the crosswalk when I heard an engine rev up. Everything turned bright, I turned around, and then I was already on the ground. At first I did not feel any pain at all.

Interviewer :

Can you describe which direction the vehicle came from?

Details Help Copy to clipboard Export

You can add a comment in three ways:

Right-click a single word and select Comment.
Drag a rectangle over a passage with the mouse, right-click it, and select Comment.
Select a passage and press C.

memozero opens a small input field right next to the selected spot. There you can write your note.

Note: Ctrl + Enter (Windows) and Cmd + Enter (macOS) send the comment. Enter alone only adds a line break. Esc cancels. A word that you inserted yourself cannot be commented on at present.

An empty field closes again as soon as you click next to it. If it already contains text, it stays open. One comment holds up to 20,000 characters.

A comment chain is the first comment at a marked spot plus all replies to it. If you want to create a comment chain, write a comment first and then select it in the comments column. A reply field appears in the open comment. Each reply belongs to the same chain. A comment chain covers up to 32 marked text spans; the number of comments in a chain is not limited.

Mark with symbols

Sometimes a comment is not the right fit, and a short marker on a word with a specific symbol is better. In the lower part of the right-click menu you therefore find a field with various symbols. A click on one of them sets a pure marker without comment text.

Twelve symbols are available:

idea, pushpin, eyes, exclamation mark
check mark, lightning bolt, circle, person
question mark, prohibition, recycling, magnifier

Once you have clicked a symbol, it appears after the selected word. A click on the symbol in the text opens the selection again. That way you can change the symbol or, by clicking it again, remove it.

Note: A symbol marker alone does not appear in the comments column. It stays a quiet marker in the text. If you want to find the spot in the list later, write a real comment.

The comments column

Recording Mr. M. (v. Miller, F.)

Review the transcript and click any word to correct it.

Review

20:42 / 47:36

5 s. 1×

Remember changes Save

Interviewer :

Good, then I would now like to talk with you about the reason for your report. It is very important to me that you describe everything the way you remember it.

Mr. M. :

So just what happened?

Interviewer :

Exactly, at your own pace. As much as you remember, as well as you remember it.

Mr. M. :

I was out, I mean, it was a Tuesday, early in the morning 💡 . It was still dark and it had been raining. I had been to the supermarket, the big one on Hall Street.

Interviewer :

And what happened after that?

Mr. M. :

I was just in front of the crosswalk when I heard an engine rev up. Everything turned bright, I turned around, and then I was already on the ground. At first I did not feel any pain at all.

Interviewer :

Can you describe which direction the vehicle came from?

Details Help Copy to clipboard Export

The comments column shows all comments you have made. The button sits at the top right of the transcript, below Save. It shows only a symbol; the name Open comments or Close comments appears when you hold the pointer on it. You can change the width of the comments column with the mouse at the edge.

If you open a transcript that already has comments, the comments column opens by itself the first time.

Each comment in the list shows:

an image,
the author name,
the relative time, for example “5 minutes ago”; after one week the date is there,
a menu with three dots,
the symbol, if one is set,
the comment text.

memozero enters the email address of your license as the author.

In the comments column the comments are shown in the following order: first all open comments, then the heading Resolved, and below it the resolved ones. Inside a group, memozero sorts by the position in the transcript. You cannot change this order.

Resolve and reopen

Recording Mr. M. (v. Miller, F.)

Review the transcript and click any word to correct it.

Review

20:42 / 47:36

5 s. 1×

Remember changes Save

Interviewer :

Good, then I would now like to talk with you about the reason for your report. It is very important to me that you describe everything the way you remember it.

Mr. M. :

So just what happened?

Interviewer :

Exactly, at your own pace. As much as you remember, as well as you remember it.

Mr. M. :

I was out, I mean, it was a Tuesday, early in the morning 💡 . It was still dark and it had been raining. I had been to the supermarket, the big one on Hall Street.

Interviewer :

And what happened after that?

Mr. M. :

I was just in front of the crosswalk when I heard an engine rev up. Everything turned bright, I turned around, and then I was already on the ground. At first I did not feel any pain at all.

Interviewer :

Can you describe which direction the vehicle came from?

Details Help Copy to clipboard Export

On the first comment of a comment chain you find the command Resolve. A click on it leads to the following:

The comment moves to the lower area, below the heading Resolved.
The reply field disappears.
The highlight in the text turns neutral gray.

The command Reopen brings the comment chain back to the top. Nothing gets lost. Resolved comments stay in the transcript and also go along into the export.

Work with colors

You can write comments in twelve different colors. This gives you a quiet thematic order (for example red for contradictions with your records, green for important or qualifying details, orange for new information, violet for spots that still need checking). The default color for comments is a muted red. You change the color of a comment through the three dots on that comment in the comments column.

A comment chain can carry only one color; if you change the color of one of the comments in the chain, the colors of all other comments in the chain change as well. If you export a transcript, the comment color is not transferred.

Edit, reply to, or delete comments

To edit, reply to, or delete a comment, proceed as follows in each case:

Edit: Open the menu with three dots. You rewrite the text directly in the comment field.
Reply: Select the comment chain. A reply field appears in the open comment. Replies stand side by side, not nested.

Caution: If you delete the first comment of a comment chain, you delete the whole chain with all replies. For a single comment, memozero does not ask first.

If you delete a reply, that removes only this reply. The rest of the comment chain stays. The next section tells you how to edit several comments at once.

Edit several comments at once

At the end of a review you often do not want to touch each comment one by one. Select several comments in one of these ways:

Hold Shift and click the comments.
Hold Shift and move through the list with ↑ and ↓.
Drag a frame over the comments with the mouse.

Resolve, Reopen, the color, and the delete command then apply to the selection together. Only the delete command for several comments asks first.

Formatting in the comment text

The comment text understands Markdown. With it you also get the option to structure longer comments. The following functions are included:

bold, italic, and strikethrough
headings
bullet lists and numbered lists
quote, code, and horizontal rule
tables and links

memozero removes images. memozero only highlights an @name. Nothing else happens with it, and no message goes to a person.

Comments in the export

Comments go into the file only if you select the option Include your comments in the export dialog. Resolved comments come along.

Caution: In the DOCX, memozero highlights every commented spot in yellow, independent of the color in the editor. So your color system from the editor does not carry over into a Word file.

Format	Result
DOCX	Real Word comments with author and date, anchored at the correct spot
TXT	Commented words in double square brackets, with a collected line below
Markdown	Commented words as `==marker==`, the collected line in italics
JSON	The complete comment data

A symbol marker alone appears in the export as its own line in the pattern “Marker [symbol] at [quote]”.

Where to go next

Correcting transcripts: the editor at a glance, from confidence to saving.
Playback and keyboard shortcuts: move faster through the review, with the keyboard.
Export formats: which format fits which task and which options the dialog offers.