Replace Metadata

Overview

Backstage offers various options to modify the metadata of multiple media files simultaneously - from replacing entire field contents to individual characters.

Option 1: Batch Processing

This action allows you to apply changes to all selected media simultaneously:

• Completely overwrite the content of a metadata field.
• Append or prepend text to the existing content of a metadata field.

To perform batch processing, follow these steps:

1. Select the files you want to edit.
   • To select a continuous range: SHIFT + Click
   • To select a non-continuous range: CTRL (PC) or CMD (Mac) + Click
2. From the Edit menu, select Batch Process.
3. Enter data into the appropriate fields.
4. Use the context menu on the left side of each field to define how to apply your data
   • Add to End: Adds the new text to the end of the existing text.
   • Add to Beginning: Adds the new text before the existing text in the field.
   • Replace: Replaces all existing data in the field with the new data.
   • No change: Leaves the field unchanged.
5. Click Save.

Media Processing: Batch Process context menu

Option 2: Metadata Action: Find and Replace

With the Find and Replace metadata action, you can apply changes to all selected media:

• Replace entire contents or just parts of information within metadata fields.
• Delete information from metadata fields.

The Find and Replace metadata action is available directly in Archive or Import folders:

Archive Folder: Metadata Action “Find and Replace”

Folder Management > Actions tab: Find and Replace enabled for selected folder

To perform a Find and Replace action, follow these steps:

1. Select Find and Replace from the Actions menu in the folder. The Configure Action dialog opens.
2. In the Configure Action dialog, select database fields:
   • Select database fields individually or enable the Select All option to include all fields.
3. Select a metadata language.
4. In the Find and Replace panel, configure the following:
   1. Filter to define how the system should handle data within the selected fields:
      • contains
      • equals
      • starts with
      • ends with
   2. Enter one or more words for the system to find.
   3. In Execute for, select one of the following options:
      • Any instance: Replace words even if the value is part of a larger word (for example, “run” will also update “runway” or “outrun”).
      • Only for complete words: Replace only words that exactly match the specified term.
   4. In Action, choose the action to process metadata
      • overwrite
      • delete
5. Click Start Action.

Metadata Action ‚Find and Replace‘: Action configuration

Option 3: Metadata export and import

To perform complex replacements or handle very large volumes of media files that the two methods above cannot manage, export the metadata from Backstage as a comma-separated text file. You can then edit this file in a text editor such as Notepad++ or a spreadsheet application like Microsoft Excel.

After making the changes, import the updated data back into Backstage.

Export metadata

To export metadata, follow these steps:

1. In Media Processing, select Archive or other folder from which you want to export metadata.
2. Click Edit > Metadata Export. In the Metadata Export dialog, configure the following settings:
   1. Configure Export Format: Specify the desired file format for the export. We recommend using the following settings:
      • Field Separator: ;
      • Text Start: "
      • Character Set: UTF-8.
   2. Field mapping for the Export: Specify the exact metadata that you want to export by selecting relevant fields in the Field Mapping column.
      • Language: Select a language for any field that can be in more than one language.
      • Separator: Set separators for lists; for example, separate keywords with a comma (,).
   3. Add more metadata fields for export with the plus icon [+] or remove fields with the minus icon [-].
   4. Click Start Export.
3. A metadata file is generated, and you can save it to your desktop.

Metadata Export dialog

Edit the text file

Backstage generates a .txt file during export, which you can open in applications such as Excel.

Follow these recommendations to correctly save the export file:

• When you open the file, make sure to choose the UTF-8 as the encoding format to avoid character issues.
• Excel may remove leading zeros by default, which can change media numbers. To keep the leading zeros, do the following when importing the file in Excel:
  • Set the column data format to Text in Excel’s Text Import Wizard.
• Use Excel’s Find and Replace tool to adjust the metadata as needed.
• Save the list locally as a CSV file.

Text Import Wizard in Excel: select the Unicode (UTF-8) encoding format

Text Import Wizard in Excel: Select “Text” as column data format

Windows “Save as” dialog: Save as type CSV UTF-8

Import metadata into Backstage

1. Upload the CSV file to Backstage.
   • You can use a new import folder that does not automatically publish content.
2. Select a folder:
   • To import metadata for unpublished media: go to Media > Media Processing and click an import folder name.
   • To import metadata for published media, click Archive (under Media Processing) and do a search.
3. In the selected folder, click Edit > Metadata Import. In the Metadata Import dialog:
   1. From the Choose Source menu, select the metadata file to import.
   2. In the Field Mapping for the Import panel, If you’ve completed all preparation steps correctly, the system displays the first media number from the list.
   3. Define what happens to the information in the other metadata fields. For each field, select:
      • In the Field mapping column: a metadata field to update.
      • In the Action column: an action to handle the data from the imported file. To replace metadata, select Overwrite.
      • Optionally, set the language and delimiter for lists within the metadata field.
4. Click Start Import. All images included in the file will now be updated. This may take some time (as a guideline: 1,000 images require approximately 5–10 minutes).