Creating Quotations in Text Documents

When you code data, quotations are created automatically. See Coding Data.You can however also create quotations without coding. To do so:

Highlight a section in your text, right click and select the option Create Free Quotation. Alternatively, you can also select the equivalent button in the ribbon.

Create Free Quotations

Once a quotation is created, you see a blue bar in the margin area and an entry in the Quotation Manager and the Document tree in the Project Explorer.

Display of quotations in the margin area

Quotation ID

Each quotation has an ID, which consists of two numbers:

  • The ID 8:1 means that the quotation was created in document 8, and it is the first quotation that was created in this document.

  • The ID 3:10 means that the quotation comes from document 3, and it is the 10th quotation that was created in this document.

Quotations are numbered in chronological and not in sequential order. If you want to change this order, see the next section:

Changing the Chronological Order of Quotations

The quotation ID numbers quotations in the chronological order when they have been created. For various reasons, at times users want the quotations to be numbered in the sequential order as they occur in the document.

When you delete quotations, the numbering is not automatically adjusted. Instead, they are gaps. Renumbering the quotations also closes those gaps.

To renumber quotations:

Open the Quotation Manager and select the Renumber Quotations option in the ribbon.

Renumber Quotations

Adding Quotation Names

Being able to name each quotation has a number of useful applications.

  • It allows you to quickly glance through your quotations in list view.
  • You can use the name field to paraphrase a quotation as required by some content analysis approaches, or to write a short summary.
  • You can use the name field for fine-grained coding (line-by-line Grounded Theory coding; initial coding in Constructive Grounded Theory, or as required by other interpretative approaches) instead of applying codes. If you already apply codes during this phase, you will end up with too many codes that are useless for further analysis. See Building a Code System.
  • Adding titles to multimedia quotations. See Working with Multimedia Data.

To add a name to a quotation, right-click on a quotation in the margin area, the Project Explorer, the Quotation Manager or in the Quotation Reader and select Rename.

Rename a quotation in the margin

If you select a quotation in the Quotation Manager, you see a preview of the quotation in the panel below the quotation list. This applies to all data file formats.

Adding a name to a text quotation in the Quotation Manager

Resize a Quotation

Modifying the length of a quotation is easy.

If you select a quotation, e.g. by clicking on the bar in the margin area, you see a white circle at the beginning and at the end of the quotation. Move the start or end position to a different location depending on whether you want to shorten or lengthen the quotation. This applies to all media types.

Resizing a quotation

Creating Quotations in PDF Documents

A text PDF file can contain images as well, like picture, graphs or tables. In ATLAS.ti you can create quotations for text and images in PDF documents.

Text selection: Select the text just like you do in a Word file. Make sure you place the cursor right next to a letter.

Selecting a graphical element: Like selecting an area in a graphic file, draw a rectangular area with your mouse. See also Creating Graphic Quotations.

Creating quotations in PDF documents

Select a segment in the PDF document, right click and select the option Create Free Quotation. Alternatively, you can also select the equivalent button in the ribbon.

PDF files can be text or image files. Sometimes users accidentally add an image PDF and wonder why they can only create graphic quotations and cannot select text. If this happens, you need to re-create the PDF file, e.g. by letting an OCR scanner running over your PDF image file. In a lot of PDF creators these days this is an option in the software, no additional physical scan is needed.

How to create quotations in audio and video documents, see Creating Multimedia Quotations.

How to create quotations in image documents, see Creating Image Quotations.