Pangur docsManage copies and parts
A copy is one set of files that shows a resource. This page explains how to add a copy to an item, choose the copy that Read opens, record how two copies relate, divide a resource into parts, and remove copies you no longer need.
A copy is a set of files that together show a resource. The photographs you took of a manuscript one afternoon are a copy, and so are a scan, a PDF, or a library's own digitisation linked through its IIIF address. Each file within a copy is a surrogate, and the MCP tools and the API call a copy a surrogate set. The terms, and the rule Pangur uses to decide which image to show, are explained in Resources, copies and surrogates. This page is about the day-to-day tasks.
You manage copies on an item's Read tab. The strip there, Copies of this item, shows a card for each copy, with the reading copy first and marked by a ribbon. A catalogued manuscript's copies also appear on its page in the catalogue.
Copies Pangur creates automatically
You do not have to make a copy before you can read a file. The first time an item's copies are listed, Pangur gathers any of the item's files that are not yet in a copy and sorts them into copies by kind. Photographs go into one copy for each shooting session, titled with the date (for example "Photographs, 3 June 2025"), and a pause of more than twelve hours between shots starts a new session. Each PDF, video, recording or document becomes a copy of its own, titled with the file's title. Any other loose images go together into a single copy called "Images", and a linked IIIF manifest becomes a copy with one surrogate for each of its canvases.
If the item has no reading copy yet, Pangur chooses one for it: a copy with a PDF if there is one, otherwise the latest copy of photographs, and otherwise the first copy. A text file is never made into a copy, because Pangur reads it as the item's text rather than as an image of it. It appears in the strip as a "Text file" card and cannot be the reading copy.
Adding a copy
Choose Add a copy in the strip. The panel that opens lets you drop photographs, scans or files (or click to choose them), link a library's digitised copy, or, in Pangur for Mac, import media from Photos.
To link a digitised copy, paste a repository viewer's address or a IIIF manifest address under Or link a library's digitised copy and choose Link. Pangur asks the repository for its manifest, and what happens from there is described in Link a digitised facsimile. Import media opens the Mac's Photos import window, described in Photograph a manuscript.
Before you send files, the panel says where they will go: either Files go to a new copy, with a suggested title, or Files go to an existing copy. Under Add to you can pick A new copy or one of the item's copies, and give a new copy its title under Called. More about this copy opens the copy's Purpose, Method and Relation fields, and a Role for each file. Pangur creates the new copy when the first file is sent.
You can also drop files straight onto a card in the strip to add them to that copy, or onto the strip itself to make a new one.
Where the files end up depends on what they are. If every file is an image, the item is of a kind that can have page images (a manuscript, letter, map or artwork, a book with an ESTC number, or an item that already has images), and the server can store photographs, then Pangur treats the files as photographs and prepares them for deep zoom. The card shows Preparing until they are ready. Any other file is attached to the item as an ordinary file. If you send a file the library already holds, Pangur tells you and does not store it twice.
Choosing the reading copy
The reading copy is the one that Read opens by default, and Ask and transcription also start from it. Every resource has exactly one.
To change it, choose a copy's card and then Make reading copy in the bar above the reader, or use the same button beside the copy in Pages and parts. The previous reading copy becomes an ordinary copy. If you delete the reading copy, Pangur picks another by the rule described under Copies Pangur creates automatically.
Editing a copy's details
Choose a copy's card and then Edit… in the bar above the reader. The Copy details dialog has these fields:
| Field | What it records |
|---|---|
| Title | The copy's name. Required when you create a copy. |
| Date or range | When the copy was made, for example 2024-06-01. |
| Made by | Who made it: you, a photographer, a digitisation programme. |
| Held by | Who holds the images, such as a repository. |
| Method | How it was made, such as Colour photography, Scan or Raking light. |
| Purpose | Why it was made, such as Regular page photography, Watermarks or Marginalia. |
| Relation | Stands alone, Corrects an earlier copy or Supplements an earlier copy. |
| Earlier copy | The copy that this one corrects or supplements. |
Method and Purpose are free text, with suggestions drawn from the project's vocabularies "Imaging method" and "Imaging purpose". A surrogate's role is suggested from "Surrogate role". Pangur adds these vocabularies to every project with a starting list of terms, and you can edit them (see Vocabularies).
Recording that one copy corrects or supplements another
When two copies cover the same part of a resource, the relation between them decides which images the reader shows. Suppose a few leaves came out blurred and you photographed them again a week later. If you record the new copy as correcting the old one, the reader shows the new images for those leaves and goes on showing the old copy's images for the leaves you did not reshoot. If instead you took raking-light shots of the same leaves to bring out the ruling, you would record the new copy as supplementing the old one: the reader then offers both views and replaces nothing.
In the dialog, choose Corrects an earlier copy or Supplements an earlier copy and pick the Earlier copy. A copy can only relate to another copy of the same resource. In Pages and parts, a surrogate that has been replaced in this way is shown faded and marked Replaced.
Pages and parts
Pages and parts, which you open from the strip or from More for this copy › Manage pages and parts…, lists every surrogate of the item. Under Across copies you can choose how to see them. Every copy lists each copy with its surrogates. Current for each part shows, for each part, the surrogate the reader actually displays once the corrects and supplements relations have been applied. By part, By purpose and By role group the surrogates by what they show, why they were made, or what each file shows.
For each surrogate you can Open or Download it, set its Role (Recto, Verso, Watermark and so on) and Save role, set what it Depicts, move it with Move to › Another copy…, or delete it. A library file belongs to one copy at a time, so moving it takes it out of the copy it was in, whereas a photograph can appear in several copies.
Adding parts to an item
A part is a page, leaf, side or face of a resource. A catalogued manuscript's parts are its folios, which you add through the catalogue. For any other item, choose Add parts…:
- Choose the Kind: Pages ("p. 1"), Leaves ("f. 1"), Sides or Faces.
- Either set How many (1 to 2,000) and Numbered from, or type your own labels under Or name them, one per line.
- The dialog confirms what it is about to add, for example ten parts numbered p. 1 to p. 10. Choose Add.
To record which part a surrogate shows, set its Depicts field. For a photograph of a catalogued manuscript, choosing a folio here also places the photograph on that folio in the catalogue, and choosing No particular part returns it to the manuscript's unplaced photographs.
Locating a part within a file
Sometimes one file holds several parts, as when a PDF contains a whole volume or a recording holds several interviews. Under Parts of this item, choose Locate a part within a copy… or Locate in a copy…, choose the Source file and give the Location:
| Location | For | You give |
|---|---|---|
| Whole source | any file | nothing more |
| Page range | a paginated PDF | First page and Last page, counting from 1 |
| Image region | an image or IIIF canvas | Left, Top, Width and Height as percentages |
| Recording segment | audio or video | Start (seconds) and End (seconds) |
Choose Save part. Remove location clears it. Naming a part needs a library record, so a catalogued manuscript that has none must first be given a reference.
A part can also be placed in an arrangement with Add to arrangement….
Deleting a copy or a surrogate
To delete a copy, choose its card and then More for this copy › Delete this copy…, or use Delete… beside it in Pages and parts. The confirmation says what will happen to the copy's files, because it depends on what they are. Library files in the copy move to the trash in your library. Photographs leave the copy but stay in the catalogue. The canvases of a linked IIIF manifest are not deleted at all, because the images belong to the repository.
Deleting a single surrogate with Delete… in Pages and parts follows the same logic. A file moves to the trash along with its highlights, a photograph leaves the copy and stays in the catalogue, and a canvas simply leaves the copy.
Note that a file taken out of a copy is not gathered into a new copy automatically later on.
For a linked digitised copy, More for this copy › Unlink makes Pangur forget the link (see Link a digitised facsimile).
Copies on other surfaces
The iPhone and iPad app has the same strip and the same Pages and parts, with Add a copy, New copy… and Link a digitised copy…. Choosing a copy for an upload works offline, and the copy is created when the queued upload is sent.
Assistants connected over MCP can list copies (list_surrogate_sets), create a copy, add files to it, describe a surrogate (including marking it as a retake of another), add parts and set the reading copy, but they cannot delete a copy or a surrogate. The web has no control for marking retakes. The tools are listed in MCP tools. The command line has no commands for copies.
In an organisation's project (a feature that is not offered on every account), members with the viewer role see these controls but Pangur refuses their changes.
Work with items and collections
An item is your library's entry for one resource. This page explains how to edit an item's details, tags and notes, how collections work, how to act on several items at once or copy them to another project, and what deleting an item does.
The trash
Deleting an item, a file or a highlight puts it in the project's trash, where it stays for 30 days. This page explains how to undo a deletion, restore something from the trash, and delete it for good.