Coppermine comes with a feature named "keywords" that allows both the gallery admin as well as end users to assign one ore more keywords to each file uploaded. This is helpful for searching purposes mostly.
Keywords can be assigned to files during the upload stage or later. They can be picked from a list of keywords or entered by typing them in.
Different keywords are separated using spaces as delimiters.
Use the "Keywords" field on the upload form to assign keywords.
Click on "edit files" next to the thumbnail that represents that album. Edit the keywords by entering them into the corresponding field.
As your gallery grows, there will be an increasing number of files in it and subsequently a lot of keywords to manage. To help you manage your keywords, there is a keyword manager available - just click on the corresponding link in the admin menu.
Note that the keyword manager willl only show up in the admin menu if you have enabled "Enable clickable keywords in search" in coppermine's config. If you have disabled the feature in config, you can still access the keyword manager using the link on the config page or by typing in keywordmgr.php in your browser's address bar (i.e. by going to http://yourdomain.tld/your_coppermine_folder/keywordmgr.php).
The items on they keyword manager screen should be self-explanatory: using the most left column labelled "edit" with the edit-icon next to a keyword you can edit a keyword that can be assigned to several files. Click on the radio button in that column, then modify the keyword using the input field at the bottom of the screen. After editing, submit the change by clicking on the "change keyword" button. This will change the selected keyword for all files.
This feature is particularly helpfull if you have keywords assigned to your files that only differs slightly: there could for example be both the keyword "apple" as well as "apples" in your gallery, which just is not the same and therefor will cause issues. Using the above mentioned option to change a keyword site-wide, either change all occurences of "apples" to "apple" or vice versa.
The feature "delete keyword" works similarly - just clicking on the "delete keyword XYZ"-link will delete the keyword for all files (it will not delete the file itself, just the keyword).
To find out in which files a particular keyword is being used, just click on "search for "XYZ" in new window".
If Enable clickable keywords in search is enabled, the list will be displayed at the bottom of the keyword manager screen just as it will be displayed on the search page.
Coppermine comes with a powerfull feature that allows you to have files that only need to be uploaded once to appear in another (or several other) albums as linked files. This can be accomplished using the album keyword feature.
Here's how you accomplish that: go to the album that contains the pics that are suppossed to show up in another album, click on "edit files" next to the thumbnail that represents that album. On the edit files screen, come up with a unique keyword that all those files have in common that a human wouldn't choose as simple keyword. Keep in mind that spaces are being used as separator for keywords. A good keyword would be "HolidayTranssylvania2007WithBradAndJanet" for example. Assign that keyword (without the quotes) to all files that are suppossed to show up in another album. Then submit the changes. Final step: go to the album that is suppossed to contain the copies (linked files). Navigate to the properties screen of that album (use the "properties" button next to the thumbnail that represents the album) and enter the keyword you chose ("HolidayTranssylvania2007WithBradAndJanet" in above example) into the field "Album Keyword" field (again without the quotes) on the properties page and submit the form. Observe the results - pretty nifty, eh? One drawback though: an album that only contains files linked from another album (using the album keyword feature) and no actual "non-linked" file can not be represented with an album thumbnail. So we suggest uploading at least one "real" pic to the album that is suppossed to contain the linked files and assign the thumbnail of that file to the album.
The keyword function reads blank spaces between words as a 'break' and assumes that these words are separate words. If you must use phrases for your keywords, connect them with an underscore or by using the ascii space holder ctrl+Alt+0160 (NOTE: the latter option only works with latin based character sets.) Each album can only have ONE (1) keyword or keyword phrase. All pictures residing in different albums that you would like to be displayed in this album must have the same keyword or keyword phrase in their respective keyword fields. Pictures, unlike albums can have multiple keywords or keyword phrases separated by spaces. This provides you with the option to display pictures in many albums. For the visitor of these albums, it will appear as if the file/image had been uploaded to each album.