Free online audio transcription
Make a free audio transcription in 3 clicks with Capté

Transcribing or retranscribing, it's not easy to find your way between these two terms, but it's simple:

• The transcription: this is the word-for-word writing of the words of your audio recording.
• Transcription: on the other hand, we will reformulate some of the words of the recording, remove some useless information or even synthesize some of it.

The difference will therefore lie mainly in the final text, depending on how you write to transform your audio document into a text document. But it will also depend on the objective you have set yourself: for example, for subtitling, the transcription is more interesting to correct language errors and remove hesitations. Transcription or retranscription, in the end it's just a matter of choice and writing, it's up to you.

You can make an audio transcription or a transcription for many different cases:

• meeting minutes
• online training
• a podcast
• a webinar 
• a report of the minutes
• an interview
• …

Audio transcripts and transcriptions are particularly used in the secretarial community.

They can take several forms: a Word document, a Google Docs, a PDF or even subtitles. You may be wondering how to make a transcription yourself? That's what we're going to see here.

It's not complicated. To make a audio transcriptionIf you need to record a meeting, minutes, a voice note, a podcast or simply a video, you first need an audio document.

Then, you will do the job of a scribe by writing word for word everything you will hear in a text file like Word or Google Docs for example. For a transcription, it's the same thing, but you'll probably rephrase or synthesize some words. Transcription or audio transcription, the difference is in the writing you're going to do. 

An audio transcription or transcription will have several advantages.

Accessibility

Firstly, with a transcript you can allow everyone to access your content. And accessibility is a fundamental right. In France, there are more than 5 million deaf and hard of hearing people, a transcription can enable them to access audio content.

Marketing

Secondly, from a marketing point of view and also in relation to the first point, a transcript or a transcription will allow you to reach a wider audience. Indeed, if your transcription takes the form of subtitles in a video, more people will watch your video: you will gain at least 12% of additional visibility because with subtitles you don't need to activate the sound. But a transcription or retranscription also allows you to translate content so you can reach an international audience. And transcripts can also allow you to gain more engagement (likes and comments) including more sharing. Transcripts can be integrated into your marketing strategy.

SEO

Third, three letters: SEO for Search Engine Optimization is the little name of natural referencing. Thanks to a transcription / transcription, you allow your content to be better referenced because search engine algorithms use the text to identify keywords and thus reference each page. So don't forget to integrate your keywords when writing your transcription.

Assimilation

When reading, one assimilates information better than when speaking, an audio transcription can help to remember and understand what was said. As a result, your message will be better remembered and understood by your audience.

Making subtitles

Creating subtitles requires a transcript! Yes, we don't necessarily think about it, but subtitles are essential in a video. And transcription is a key step in the process. Subtitles also have the same marketing, SEO, accessibility and assimilation advantages, but all of this compared to video. But not that, today with the democratization of podcasts, subtitles are part of a marketing strategy to advertise episodes: excerpts from recordings are subtitled and then shared on social networks to communicate on the podcast.

 You can do your transcription by hand, but the oral rate is about 200 words / min, while the manual keyboard typing speed is about 60 words / min. So there are techniques to help you with this task.

To make a transcription, you can use voice input. You can directly edit your text as in Google docs and it is written automatically. Voice input is the same system used by Siri or Alexa voice assistants. Voice input technology uses voice recognition.

How to transcribe an audio using speech recognition? Well it's simple, you have to use the parrot technique. That is, you will listen to your audio and then repeat what you hear to dictate it to the voice input feature. This will transcribe your words into text and that's it. But beware, the transcription can be approximate and beware of typos!

You may be wondering how speech recognition works. This technology analyzes the human voice and then transcribes it into text form. In fact, it is this technology that allows you to transform audio into text. And how do you make this technology work at its best? You have to make sure that your sound recording is of good quality. To do this, avoid being in a noisy place when recording, have a quality microphone and avoid adding music to your audio. The clearer the voices are heard, the better voice recognition will be able to analyze the audio and make an accurate transcription of the voices.

Speech recognition is also a technique for transcribing your audio, integrated into software or tools, it can allow you to transcribe your audio recording in a few minutes. Capté is an online subtitling service that integrates this technology.

A transcription or transcript is a lengthy process. That is why today there are free and professional online tools on the market to do this work automatically. Often it is artificial intelligence that will help you by automatically transcribing your audio document. For the moment, most of these services still need you to go back to edit the text because there may be typos in the transcript or misunderstandings such as with proper names, for example.

Captured is a software that will answer your transcription request. Captured will allow you to automatic transcription of your video documents. Thanks to this tool that uses the same speech recognition as Google, your words will become lines of text that will be integrated into your video to become subtitles. So creating subtitles has never been easier. You can also retrieve your .SRT if needed or simply copy each line of subtitles to a text file if you only want the text. 

How to create a transcript with Capté?

1. Upload your registration 
2. The tool takes care of transcribing your recording to transform it into text and more precisely into subtitles.
3. Edit the text rendering directly. The tool's editor works like a Google doc or a word page to make your work easier and more efficient.
4. Copy the text and paste it into a text file, your transcript is ready.

If you want to make subtitles in a video, the next step is to export the subtitles. When the export is ready, you will receive an email.

If you have a question, you can contact our team who will be ready to answer you. If the team is absent, an email will be sent to you as soon as the team will answer your message.

To transcribe or retranscribe an audio document you can either do it yourself from A to Z or use a service such as software or an online tool. But which is better?

Well, doing it all by hand is going to be long and tedious. So already we'll prefer to have a help like an online tool or a software to go faster. The best is of course when the audio transcription is automatic for more simplicity.

Calling a transcriber

If you do not wish to make your audio transcription yourself, you can hire a professional transcriber to type your audio document. This will save you time but may be expensive.

The software 

The software will have to be downloaded to your computer, so you need to have enough space on your computer to transcribe your audio document with peace of mind. The software is especially useful when you have no internet connection or a connection that is too weak, because it allows you to work independently and with peace of mind. No network problems will disturb your workflow.

Software is more of a writing aid. They will allow you to have a good workflow and to visualize your audio transcription. These softwares allow you to manage the speed of the audio file so that you can easily write what you want to say.

The online tool 

The online tool requires access to an internet connection so you will not always be able to do your audio transcription where you want. But the online tool does not take up any space on your computer and you do not risk losing your data because it is often stored on your account and you can access it at any time. Another advantage of online tools is that they often do the audio transcription by themselves using speech recognition, which saves you time. Automatic transcription is a time saver for you!

In the end, professional services, software or online tools, it is also according to the tastes, budgets and habits of each person. Depending on the format of your audio file, you will also choose different software or tools. However, all three allow you to save time and to devote yourself to your work. But not all of them are a saving of money, with sites like Capté you can save up to 300€ per month for subtitling your videos and focus on the essentials. The best method and the best tool will be the one that meets your needs and allows you to be as efficient as possible in your transcription task.

In some professions, transcription is a mandatory step as in secretarial or legal work for trial or meeting minutes.

But nowadays, it is becoming more and more a part of everyone's daily life without anyone paying any attention to it. For example, with the help of vocal assistants to enter notes or in the requests that we make to Alexa, Ok Google, Siri, Cortana... Indeed, these vocal assistants recognize your voice before entering the request in a search engine because today, there is always a need for a textual input to be understood by a search engine. 

Voice transcription is also increasingly being used to send messages. Convenient when you don't have your hands free, simply dictate your message and it is automatically transcribed. Of course, the result is not always perfect, but it is still useful.

In the future, speech transcription will improve and thanks to better speech recognition, audio content will be more easily transcribed automatically, allowing accessibility to all and better indexing of audio content. This will also provide more opportunities in the field of voice command. In the future, we can therefore expect more frequent use of voice transcription in different fields.