This workshop will walk participants through using a tool called Tropy to manage research materials of any format.

1. Open Tropy.
Open File Explorer to a directory where
you have photos.
Put your Zoom screen back on top.
Tropy Workshop [date]

2. Manage Research Images with Tropy
Michele Hayslett, Data Services Librarian
[date]

3. Agenda
• About the software
• Tropy features (demo/walk-through)
2

4. Tropy
• Free, open-source software to organize images
• Available for multiple platforms: Mac, Windows, Linux…
• Good documentation at https://docs.tropy.org/
• Index to your file storage (doesn’t store files within itself)
• File-type agnostic*

5. File Types
• PDF*
• JP2000
• WEBP
• HEIC
• AVIF
Currently accepts:
• JPG/JPEG
• PNG
• SVG*
• TIFF
• GIF

6. What It Cannot Do
• Tropy is not photo editing software (e.g., Photoshop).
• It offers only basic editing functions (rotate, crop, zoom, and a few
others) sufficient to allow you to make the content of a photo
legible.
• Tropy is not a citation manager (e.g., Zotero).
• It does not capture metadata from online catalogs or finding aids. It
does not generate citations for use in word-processing software.

7. What It Cannot Do
• Tropy is not a platform for writing up your research (e.g.,
DEVONthink).
• While it does allow you to take notes attached to photos, you
cannot use it to create any other kind of document.
• Tropy is not a platform for presenting your research
online (e.g., Omeka).
• It operates on your personal computer, not on a server. You can
export your projects to JSON-LD and to Omeka S, where you can
create online exhibits.

8. University Libraries
Click to edit subtitle or section name
Demo/Walk-through

9. Functionality
• Nothing you do in Tropy affects the original image*
• Can add photos to Projects or Lists, e.g., the items you’ll
use for a book versus a chapter
• Can nest Lists within Projects and other Lists.
• Beware: Deleting in one List deletes from all Lists in a project
(but not the original file).

10. Organize and describe
• Use customizable templates to add “metadata,” e.g., title,
date, author, box, folder, collection, archive. Tag photos,
e.g., by research project, research themes, photo subjects,
research stage (e.g., Transcribed or Still to Do), etc.
• Can also add these descriptors to multiple items at once.*
• Add one or more notes to a photo, e.g., a transcription of a
document; thoughts about where to use the material; etc.
• Use a different template for correspondence.

11. More Functionality
• Can Merge photos into Items (e.g., photos of the three pages
of a letter into a single item)
• Has tools to improve readability in the Item View**
(rotate, sharpen, invert colors, etc.) – Look for this icon to access the
Advanced menu:
• Can create a separate thumbnail of a small section (like a
map legend) using the dotted box Selection Tool in the Item
View
• Search your metadata, tags, and notes.

12. Questions?
Michele Hayslett
michele_hayslett@unc.edu
17
What other questionsdo you
have about managing files?
What workshop(s)do you want next, i.e., on one of these
classes of tools? Or something else?
Davis Library Research Hub
researchhub@unc.edu