Adding/changing
components

Adding/changing the order of components

It is not currently possible to change the order of your components from within the EAD Editor.  If you need to change the order or add a new component, you will need to edit the EAD of your description, and re-upload it.  Here’s how:

  1. Get a copy of the EAD version of your description.  You can download this from the EAD Editor: click the ‘save to disk’ button in the left-hand pane of the editing interface.  This allows you to download and save a copy of your description in EAD.  The file extension should be .xml. You can also download EAD from the Archives Hub.
  2. Open the xml document which contains your EAD. You can use an xml editor, or a text program such as notepad or wordpad.
  3. Make your changes (see below for how to reorder and add components) and save the xml file.
  4. Go back into the EAD Editor, and delete the description.  Make sure that you a) have the xml version saved and b) delete the correct description.
  5. From the edit/create screen in the EAD Editor, choose ‘upload a file from my hard drive to begin editing’, and navigate to where you have the xml file saved. Choose ‘edit local file’.  If the import is successful, the editing screen will open.  You may get one of the following error messages:
    • An error occurred while parsing your file. Please check the file is a valid ead file and try again.  Check that you are uploading the correct file, and that the extension is .xml. If so, open the file and check that the EAD is correctly formed, and all your tags close correctly. See the manual encoding page for more information on correctly formed EAD.
    • You already have this file open for editing as <filename>
      Check that you have uploaded the correct file. Remember that you need to delete the version in the EAD Editor before you can upload a new version.  The EAD Editor checks for uniqueness on the <eadid>, not the filename, so renaming the file won’t allow you to upload a new version of an existing file.

Your file should now be open in the EAD Editor for further editing, with the changes you made in the EAD visible.

To reorder components

  1. In the xml file, navigate to the component you want to move. If your file is quite long, try searching for the <unitid> of the component.
  2. Select the whole of the component, from the opening <c> tag to the closing </c> tag. Cut the selected text (using ctrl+x or the in-program menus)

Moving a component

  1. Navigate to where you want the component to be and paste the text. Repeat until all components are in the desired order.
  2. Save and upload to the EAD Editor. If you need to change the numbering of subsequent components, you can either do this with find and replace in the xml editor before uploading the file, or within the EAD Editor.

To add a component between two existing components of the same level

These instructions only apply if you would like to add a component between 2 existing components of the same level. You can add lower or higher level components through the EAD Editor. For instance, to add a 10th letter to the Correspondence of Arthur Barker Ltd below, you could use the EAD Editor if it comes at the end of the current sequence (RG/J/ABarker/10), but would need to use this technique if the new letter should actually be between RG/J/ABarker/1 and RG/J/ABarker/2.

Component hierarchy
  1. In the xml file, navigate to where you want to add the component. If your file is quite long, try searching for the <unitid> of a component either side of where you want to edit.
  2. Place your cursor between the closing </c> (or </c01>, </c02> etc) tag and the opening tag of the components between which you wish to insert a new one. Enter opening and closing <c> and <did> tags for your new component, like this: <c> <did> </did></c>
    This works for numbered (<c01> etc) components as well as unnumbered ones.
  3. If you save and upload your file, you will see that a new component now exists in that place in the hierarchy. You can complete the rest of the component information in the EAD Editor.
  4. If you need to change the numbering of subsequent components, you can either do this with find and replace in the xml editor before uploading the file, or within the EAD Editor.

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