Export Categories as keywords?

[rafiki]

Can I export my categories as keywords?

[Mario]

You want to export your categories into hierarchical keywords? Why?
Usually you use the special @Keywords category to combine the power of categories and keywords. And you use 'real' categories for organizational purposes and for categories which should not be stored inside the image.

There is a trick to copy categories to hierarchical keywords using Metadata Templates. But this would duplicate your categories under @Keywords...

[rafiki]

You want to export your categories into hierarchical keywords? Why?

I want to do a project on a separate system trialling a new photo processor and not, initially, using iMatch.

[Mario]

Check out this FAQ article written by Ferdinand:

How to migrate categories to @Keywords with a metadata template

Make a backup copy of your database before.
Try out your category variable in VarToy to make sure you grab only the categories you want etc.

[rafiki]

Thank you.

[ChristopherFoto]

You want to export your categories into hierarchical keywords? Why?
Usually you use the special @Keywords category to combine the power of categories and keywords. And you use 'real' categories for organizational purposes and for categories which should not be stored inside the image.

There is a trick to copy categories to hierarchical keywords using Metadata Templates. But this would duplicate your categories under @Keywords...

I've done everything wrong for years.
I've always assigned my images to categories and then written them as keywords in the files.
Thus, the categories were all duplicated.
I should probably think again about that.

[Mario]

IMatch categories existed long before there were hierarchical keywords.

Since IMatch 5 which supported hierarchical keywords and the @Keywords category, keywords should go into keywords, all else into categories.