Transcribe Audio to Text: How to Start?

There are so many options that transcribe audio to text. Therefore, it is hard to choose among them. Trying to decide on the way for transcription wastes your time and energy. Or even worse: you end up picking the lousy option.

What are the Options to Transcribe Audio to Text?

There are two ways to transcribe audio to text: manual transcription and automatic software. They both have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Manual Transcription

It is possible to perform transcriptions by hand. Although they usually tire of this option very quickly, that’s how people start. Particularly for people for whom transcription is an ongoing task, and not a one-off thing creating transcriptions by hand is not desirable.

1. Huge Amount of Effort: Performing manual transcription can be very difficult, especially without prior expertise. It involves a time-consuming process of stopping and restarting the recording. Difficulties worsen if the audio quality is poor or the speaker has an unfamiliar accent.
2. Time Waste: A trained transcriptionist usually takes 5 hours to transcribe 1-hour audio to text. It is important to note that if a person does not have the necessary equipment or the training that experts have, it will take a lot longer than 5 hours to transcribe audio to text.

Automatic Software to Transcribe Audio to Text

Automatic software is far better than the other options. They are especially beneficial in terms of speed and efficiency.

The two main problems with automatic software are cost and accuracy. There are no human beings involved in the process of automatically transcribing audio to text. So automatic transcription cannot yield the same accuracy as manual. It’s still good enough, but it’s essential to know the shortcomings of each option regardless.

In order to tackle these drawbacks, there are a few things you can do:

1. Use In-App Editing Software to Transcribe Audio Files to Text: Look for software with an in-app editing feature. If you are worried about accuracy, try transcribing audio to text using this tool. It enables you to have a final touch on your text. This way, you will be confident that your final product will be accurate.
2. Use Google Docs to Transcribe Audio to Text: For those who don’t want to spend money, Google Docs is an excellent free and straightforward option to turn audio into text. Just leave the mic open on Google Docs, and it will start transcribing live audio to text. This is very useful when you need to turn over some notes quickly.
3. Use Third-Party Alternatives to Google Docs: The accuracy of Google Docs is a bit low. It often misses words if they are not articulated very clearly. In addition, it makes a lot of punctuation errors. If missing commas and periods is not acceptable for your audio-to-text task, there are other alternatives to Google Docs. One of the most popular tools for turning audio into text is Dragon. Dragon is the most expensive tool by far, which costs up to $500 per year. But it is also the industry standard for high-quality audio-to-text tasks.

Why Use Transkriptor to Transcribe Audio to Text?

Transkriptor is an excellent app for turning your audio content into text. This free software allows you to upload the audio file of a recording, and it will turn it into text so you can stop worrying about taking notes. Transkriptor is suitable for the workplace. It enables users to record meetings, lectures, and presentations with their phone’s microphone and then convert this audio to text. Transkriptor also allows editing and sharing of transcriptions for future reference.

Frequently Asked Questions