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Notes on Image Documents

Image documents can be imported and coded in a MAXQDA project, as with normal text documents. There are, however, certain special considerations when working with images:

Saving Image Documents outside of the MAXQDA project

Normally all image documents of less than 5 MB are saved directly in the MAXQDA project. Image documents larger than 5 MB are not saved directly in the project, but rather in the folder for external files, and only a reference referring to the externally saved file is generated. You can customize the maximum file size as well as the location for externally saved files under Project > Preferences … (Windows) or MAXQDA 12 > Preferences … (Mac).

Tip: If you are working with many large image files (e.g. with a total size of more than 1 GB), it makes sense to store them externally so that the MAXQDA file remains small and can be easily secured. For optimal performance it is recommended that externally saved files be located on the local hard disk and if possible not on a network, although the acceleration of network speeds mean that this poses less and less of a problem.

Coding Image Segments

In image documents, borders can be drawn around the selected area with the mouse which can be subsequently coded like text segments, meaning they can be dragged and dropped into a code. With the Complex Coding Query and Code Relations Browser, the “Near” function for image segments always returns a result of 0.

Rotating and Zooming Images

As soon as an image document is displayed in the „Document Browser“, several icons for viewing the image will appear in the toolbar. You can zoom in or out of the image as well as rotate it clock­wise (images imported from digital cameras and mobile phones should, as a rule, rotate to the right, provided the correct information has been saved in the image.)

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