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Below you will find a brief guide to the key features of the transcription interface.
We do recommend that you save your work at regular intervals. Click the 'Save' button at the bottom of the transcription box.
We know that screen space is at a premium for transcribers, and to ensure that you have as large a screen area as possible when transcribing, the 'maximise' and 'minimise' buttons have been created.
Once you have clicked on 'edit' to begin transcribing, in the top right of the screen you will find the two buttons. Clicking 'maximise' (see image below) removes everything from view apart from the transcription interface, while 'minimise' resumes the full website view. You can still save your work and submit it to the project editors in 'maximised' mode.
These are buttons are particularly appropriate to Transcribe Bentham because 'maximise' and 'minimise' are words coined by Bentham himself. He came up with several other words which are today part of our common lexicon, including 'international', 'preferability', and 'codification'; sadly, 'circumgyration' (or jogging) did not stick!
Once the transcription interface is opened, there are three tabs between which users can switch back and to between at their convenience.
Volunteers type their transcript into this box, and encode their work using the Transcription toolbar.
(This feature is currently malfunctional. We are working to fix it as soon as possible.)
Clicking the 'preview' tab allows volunteers to instantly see how their encoded transcript will look when rendered, without necessarily having to save their work. This tab should help you to quickly identify any errors or other difficulties. Simply click 'Wikitext' to leave the preview and continue transcribing.
Clicking the 'Changes' tab allows volunteers to instantly see where they have made edits to the transcript since beginning work on it. The original text is displayed on the left, with changes you have made shown on the right. We anticipate this feature being of most use when working on manuscripts that have already been partially-transcribed.
The image viewer allow users to navigate the manuscript, and zoom in down to individual words using either the buttons or a mouse scroll-wheel.
The Flash viewer also allows volunteers to rotate the image which they are viewing, particularly useful when Bentham's writing strays into the margins. To rotate the image anti-clockwise and clockwise, click .JPG){kind=small}
, and then pan around the image using .JPG){kind=small}
. We recommend zooming in closely before rotating the image. (The rotation feature is currently malfunctional. We are working to fix it as soon as possible.)
To return the image to its original orientation, click .JPG){kind=small}
.