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ghosted

De-identify transcripts with helpers:

  • ghost_vtt() — redact a .vtt (Zoom/WebVTT) file and write .vtt/.docx/.txt; supports redact_other, redact_interviewer, include_common_names, redacted_token, add_blank_line_between_turns, output_path, suffix, out_format, report_redacted.
  • ghost_docx() — redact a .docx and write .docx/.txt/.vtt; supports redact_other, redact_interviewer, include_common_names, redacted_token, add_blank_line_between_turns, output_path, suffix, out_format, report_redacted.
  • ghost_txt() — redact a .txt and write .txt/.docx/.vtt; supports redact_other, redact_interviewer, include_common_names, redacted_token, add_blank_line_between_turns, output_path, suffix, out_format, report_redacted.
  • ghost_batch() — run the same logic across a folder of .vtt/.docx/.txt files; supports redact_other, redact_interviewer, include_common_names, redacted_token, add_blank_line_between_turns, output_dir, suffix, out_format, report_redacted.

Common arguments (ghost_vtt/ghost_docx/ghost_txt):

  • filepath: input file path (.vtt/.docx/.txt respectively).
  • interviewers: character vector of interviewer names (required).
  • interviewees: character vector of participant names (optional).
  • redact_other: additional words/phrases to redact.
  • redact_interviewer: if TRUE, also redact interviewer names in text.
  • include_common_names: if TRUE, include ghosted::common_names_default() if available.
  • redacted_token: replacement token for redactions (default [REDACTED]).
  • add_blank_line_between_turns: for DOCX/TXT outputs, insert a blank line between turns.
  • output_path: explicit output file path; if NULL, uses input dir with suffix.
  • suffix: appended to base name when auto-generating outputs (default "_redacted").
  • out_format: output type. Allowed values per function:
  • report_redacted: if TRUE, prints which phrases were found and redacted.

Installation

You can install the development version of ghosted like so:

# via remotes
remotes::install_github("abiraahmi/ghosted")

# or with pak
# pak::pak("abiraahmi/ghosted")

Examples 

library(ghosted)

# VTT → DOCX (or "vtt"/"txt")
ghost_vtt(
  filepath     = "inst/data/sample.vtt",
  interviewers = "Sansa Stark",
  interviewees = "Arya Stark",
  out_format   = "docx",
  output_path  = "output/sample_DEID.docx",
  suffix       = "_DEID"
)

# DOCX → DOCX
ghost_docx(
  filepath     = "inst/data/transcript.docx",
  interviewers = "Sansa Stark",
  interviewees = "Arya Stark",
  output_path  = "output/transcript_DEID.docx"
)

# TXT → TXT
ghost_txt(
  filepath     = "inst/data/notes.txt",
  interviewers = "Sansa Stark",
  interviewees = "Arya Stark",
  output_path  = "output/notes_DEID.txt"
)

# Batch a folder (keep file types)
res <- ghost_batch(
  input_dir    = "inst/data/transcripts",
  interviewers = "Sansa Stark",
  interviewees = "Arya Stark",
  output_dir   = "output",
  suffix       = "_DEID"
)
print(res)

Notes - Leading speaker tokens at line start (e.g., Name: or <v Name>) are normalized to Interviewer/Participant while names elsewhere are redacted. - For DOCX/TXT → VTT conversions in ghost_batch(out_format = "vtt"), cues are written without timestamps. - Ensure officer is installed for .docx reads/writes.