modifying keywords in list

[someothername]

The title doesn't really capture it. Here's what I've done.
I have a keyword list that has cat as one of the words, a top level word. I created an import file of which part looks like this:
Animal
Domestic
{pet}
cat
{cats}
Zoey

I import this file of keywords and the new tree shows up in my keyword list. But the photos already tagged with cat did not get pulled into this tree, instead the cat keyword, way down in my list, is where the cats are and nothing got pulled into the list I imported. Capitalization is not the problem, as I also had Zoey in my list capitalized the same.

Now I've found that I can drag a key word to another keyword and when I drop it there, it goes under it as a child. I can even drag from way down the list and it'll scroll so I can drop my old cat on the new cat. However, what that does is create
Animal
Domestic
cat
cat
Zoey
And in the keyword box when I select one of the photos, I have
cat > cat, cat > domestic

At this point I can probably simply go through and fix things by deleting cat > cat out of the keyword box, but it sure would be nice to have a way to import a tree and have existing keywords pulled into their spots in the new tree.

Any suggestions?

 

[Brad Snyder]

No, unfortunately, that's the way it works. Or, at least I've never been able to get it to do what you're asking.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Elaborating a little for other interested readers, and as you've found in the Controlled Vocabulary forum, LR really has no way of distinguishing the different 'cat' versions in your keyword hierarchy.

cat > snow > transportation
cat > hep > jazz > music
cat > domesticated > animal
cat > animal

Which of those cats are the same and can be merged, and which aren't/can't? You and I are smart enough to tell; at this, point LR isn't.

So, two catalogs will merge keyword which are in the same location in a hierarchy, but the others will be duplicated.

Would be great if it did work, tho'.

 

[Steve Anderson]

My question about the keyword list is how can I delete several at once.
I am new here, and have looked unsuccessfully, everywhere to start a post to ask this. Now I'm in search mode.
Thanks
Steve

 

[Brad Snyder]

Steve, Welcome to the Forums, our friend Sean answered you on another thread.

While it's rarely necessary to duplicate a post, as you say, newcomers can find it confusing to know where to start. I'll repeat the answer here, for completeness.

Create a dummy parent keyword e.g. DeleteMe, drag the subject keywords to the parent as a group. Delete the parent.