# Lightroom not offering keyword hierarchies for nested keywords



## becksnyc (Aug 31, 2019)

Thanks, Victoria, for the suggestion to post my query here in the forum.  My quandry:
Trying to organize a long list of (mostly) single keywords into hierarchical keywords.  Clicking and dragging to create nested keywords is *not* making Lightroom offer hierarchical keywords when I try to add the lowest level keyword. For example, I dragged “Morning glories” (among dozens of other flowers) into the already existing “Flowers < Flora." When I try to add keyword "Morning glories," or when I check photos that were previously labeled "Morning glories", I see "Flowers < Flora, Morning glories" not "Morning glories < Flowers < Flora". This is true of ALL the keywords I've recently nested (see image 6, screenshot of attempt to add "Lubec_Maine"...Lightroom doesn't offer the keyword hierarchy "Lubec_Maine >Maine >States > United States > Places" (although it DOES offer hierarchies created years ago, for example, when I type in "flowers", it offers "flowers > Flora". I'm totally stumped and don't want to waste time organizing more keywords if this can't be resolved. 
Thanks for any help, much appreciated!


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## becksnyc (Sep 1, 2019)

Oops, I used ">" in the Maine series and it should've been "<".


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## LouieSherwin (Sep 1, 2019)

I think that everything is ok. The only thing you could change is to uncheck the "Flowers" level in your hierarchy. It is really not needed since the lower level "Morning glories" is checked and that includes all the rest of the hierarchy.  You can see this working by selecting either "Will export" or "Keywords & Containing Keywords" in the drop down menu in the Keywording tab and then check and uncheck different levels in the hierarchy.

Other than the above I find the "Enter Keywords" option in the  "Keywording" tab mystifying as to how it displays options. So I generally ignore it and only use the Keyword List tab to add my keyword hierarchy. That way I can clearly see the hierarchies and select the one I want. 

I notice that you using top level terms to organize your hierarchy and that these are probably set to not export. I do the same thing. One caveat is that if you ever want to export derivatives and have them included back into your catalog (The Export dialog has that option), Export will remove all the terms marked not for export and create new hierarchies when it imports the derivatives. This is not a common use case but I mention it for completeness. 

I have a bug report about this here. Lightroom: Export destroys keyword hierarchy when creating derivatives to be included in the catalog

Another limitation of the current implementation is that search in the Keywords list will not return results for any synonyms that you may have defined. Another long requested feature. If that is an issue you can consider using using the AnyTag plugin. I use this quite a bit since it is also accessible using a keyboard shortcut rather than multiple clicks. It is very fast when you have a number of terms that you want to apply quickly.  The interface is quirky but easy to learn. 

-louie


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## becksnyc (Sep 2, 2019)

Thank you for your thorough reply.  Very helpful!
I unchecked flowers as recommended and did a test export, examined the metadata and found the entire hierarchy was written to the photo. That's good.
Regarding the use of the Keyword List rather than Keywording entry box, I appreciate the suggestion.  I would have to use filtering each time, though, because my list is too long for scrolling.  I don't understand why it doesn't consistently show me the hierarchy in the Keywording box?  If it exists, why isn't it being shown/offered?
I'm also beyond aggravated with the Windows 10 issue that currently prevents me from scrolling below the letter "E".  I chose to add _A_, _B_, _C_, etc and nest keywords alphabetically.  However in doing that, I lost Lightroom's automatic alphabetization.  It alphabetizes under each letter, but doesn't sort new keywords into each letter.  (Is that because I used the underscore symbol before/after?  I've read that the scrolling limitation of Windows has been long known and never addressed in the Keyword list?
Lightroom is a wonderful editor for photos, but lacking post-creation editing functions, basic functions like being able to search an exact phrase.  I'm tearing my hair out and wondering if this is really worth the time.  How I wish I'd known to create a structure BEFORE keywording.


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## becksnyc (Sep 2, 2019)

Regarding not showing the hierarchy, I just discovered that I did not have "Keywords and containing keywords checked."  One issue resolved.


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## becksnyc (Sep 2, 2019)

I'm sorry for posting twice, but the editing time limit expired and I can't remove my last comment. 
Regarding not showing the hierarchy, I just discovered that I did not have "Keywords and containing keywords" checked. However, it still doesn't show it as a true hierarchy.  I understand that the letter "_F_" is only for organizational purposes, but that Flora is listed *twice *and Morning Glories is separated by a comma, not in a hierarchy? I'm lost on that. (Double-checked, Flora is not in keyword list twice).


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## LouieSherwin (Sep 2, 2019)

Well as I said I have never been able to make sense of the Keywording tab. The only thing I ever use it for is to check what will be exported because I don't want my organizational terms included for images sent to web etc..

I think that you may find AnyTag a much more useful tool when applying keywords, I certainly do. I have it setup to activate by a Ctl-T. It shows all the keywords already applied and has a powerful search to find other terms or synonyms. 

If you from general to specific for example you can select all the images that have common traits, hit Ctl-T, search and assign terms, click OK, and then click Sync Metadata to copy  your keywords to all the other selected images.  

You do have to accustom yourself to the interface, for example TAB moves field to field but arrow keys don't. It is not very intuitive to add new keywords and hierarchies but once you under stand it is quite easy.  

Also because of the limitations of the Lightroom API the plug-in has to build its own data set of keywords to allow quick searching.  Initially you have to build that file and if you create new keywords using the plugin both its file and the Lightroom catalog are kept in sync. If you add new keywords in Lightroom you just have to remember to reload the plugin data. There is a button on the GUI just for that purpose. 

-louie


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## becksnyc (Sep 2, 2019)

Thank you, Louie, I will check it out.  May I ask, is it possible to increase font size of the AnyTag interface?


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## LouieSherwin (Sep 2, 2019)

becksnyc said:


> Thank you, Louie, I will check it out.  May I ask, is it possible to increase font size of the AnyTag interface?



I would ask the developer, John R. Ellis. There is an contact email listed in the Support section of the online documentation. online documentation. He is prolific contributor on the Adobe Forums and Feedback site. I have found that he is very responsive to any issues or questions that I have brought up in the past.

-louie


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