Metadata is additional information you can add to any of your local documents, for example sample collection history, organism identification, primers used etc. There are many standard metadata fields already built into Geneious, but it is also possible to create custom fields to store whatever additional information you like.
To add a custom metadata field that does not already exist in Geneious, click the Info tab, and in the Properties view select Edit meta-data types.
In this window you can either add a new metadata field into an existing metadata type, or you can create a completely new metadata type with custom fields.
1. To add a new field to an existing metadata type
Select the metadata type you want to use, then click the orange + button next to one of the existing fields and type in the name of the new field you want.
Click OK to return to the Info window. Then add your metadata fields to your document by clicking Add Meta-data. Select the meta-data type you added the new field to, and click Add.
The new metadata type will then appear in the Info window, and you can type data into the fields by clicking on the field.
Click Save to record the change on the document.
2. To add a new metadata type with custom fields
From the Info window, click Edit meta-data types, and click the Create button at the bottom of the list of existing types.
Enter the name for the metadata type, and then enter the individual fields that will make up this type. To enter a new field, click the orange "+" button. The example below shows a new metadata type called "Sampling location", where the data are comprised of the country, sample site, GPS coordinates and date collected. For the date collected field, we can change the data format to "Date" to ensure a consistent format across all documents.
Click OK to save these changes.
Adding metadata to your document
To add the new metadata fields to your document click Add Meta-data. You should now see your new metadata type appear in the list of available types. Select it and click Add to add the fields to your document.
Your new metadata fields will now be added to your document info, and you can type data in by clicking on the fields.
Once data is added to new metadata fields and the document is saved, the new fields will appear as new columns in the document table. The new columns will be added to the right-hand side of the table (you may need to scroll across to see them).
If you wish to add metadata in bulk via a spreadsheet, please see the instructions at How do I import metadata from a spreadsheet onto existing Geneious documents?