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meganf59103457
meganf59103457
Participant
January 11, 2017
Answered

ADOBE KEYWORDS LIST

  • January 11, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 3143 views

Question about using keywords. I have a HUGE database of photos that I'm tagging, all in various nests and folders and sub-folders. I see a few repeated keywords on the list. Why is this? Is there a way to just export the list of repeated words? the ones not in italics?

Why does it repeat words like "action" (not italicized, a repeated word) in the top keyword list as well as the bottom? Have I messed up and created lots of repeated tags? Just want to clean it up and make an exported list with only the words used most often. Some of my photos already had strange tags for some reason I will probably end up just deleting those.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you!

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Stephen Marsh

I don’t know how you have duplicated keywords in both the main section and other section, I can do this with intent however I don’t know how this would accidentally occur.

Yes, you can export the list of assigned/permanent keywords, except for the italic ones which are applied to images but are not persistent in the Bridge keyword list/database. Use the menu on the upper right of the keywords tab to export to text file. You could make a backup of the exported keywords text file, then you could de-dupe the list in a text editor, spreadsheet or other software and import the clean list back in again with a “clear and import”.

It is probably wise to manually export this file out for backing up, or to use an automated method to backup the resulting XML file as it can take some work to rebuild your keyword file if it is lost.

As for finding out which keywords are used most often, this is possible in the “filter” panel in a visual way for the current browse, search, collection or smart collection. Third party software such as ExifTool and a spreadsheet could be used to do this as well.

2 replies

L
lenav83625822
Participant
January 17, 2017

It's possible to assign keywords to [other keywords] by accident yourself. It's a better idea to make your own structure, so you can see the difference between your own keywords and keywords from others (italic). The first level [where] [what] [who] and then make subkeywords. All your own keywords can be export as .txt as explained above.

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Stephen MarshCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
January 11, 2017

I don’t know how you have duplicated keywords in both the main section and other section, I can do this with intent however I don’t know how this would accidentally occur.

Yes, you can export the list of assigned/permanent keywords, except for the italic ones which are applied to images but are not persistent in the Bridge keyword list/database. Use the menu on the upper right of the keywords tab to export to text file. You could make a backup of the exported keywords text file, then you could de-dupe the list in a text editor, spreadsheet or other software and import the clean list back in again with a “clear and import”.

It is probably wise to manually export this file out for backing up, or to use an automated method to backup the resulting XML file as it can take some work to rebuild your keyword file if it is lost.

As for finding out which keywords are used most often, this is possible in the “filter” panel in a visual way for the current browse, search, collection or smart collection. Third party software such as ExifTool and a spreadsheet could be used to do this as well.

meganf59103457
meganf59103457Author
Participant
January 16, 2017

Great, thank you. If I deleted any of the duplicate keywords from the list would it delete the info from my photos? Should I just leave them as is just in case? Scared to lose any info.

Does the exported list include all keywords in my database or just the keywords in the section I was viewing?

I suppose I was accidentally duplicating words when I didn't think I saw them on the list.

Stephen Marsh
Community Expert
Stephen MarshCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 16, 2017

If a keyword is applied to an image or sidecar file, then the keyword is written into the file – so removing the keyword from the Bridge Keywords panel would have no effect on the file. You can test this with a small sample of files to verify. The keyword would then be displayed as temporary/non-persisent italic keywords when browsed, but would not be permanently added into the keywords unless it was made persistent.

It is only the persistent (Roman, upright) keywords which are written to the keywords database – not the temporary italic keywords which are not written to the underlying XML file database.

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