Transcribe video yourself: The best tips and tools

Transcribing your video yourself is all about increasing productivity. The right tips and tools will help you do just that

Transcribe video yourself: Our 5 tips

If you have a video you want to transcribe yourself, helpful tools and tips are important. Use the following as a guide to boost your own performance:

• Use footswitch: Use a footswitch to control the speed of the video. This allows you to write at your own pace. If you don’t want to buy a footswitch, use your keyboard and configure a key to use it to control the speed:

• Language recognition software: If you don’t want to type the text, a program that recognizes the language and types the text can also help you. For example, Dragon NaturallySpeaking software can be a good help.

• Improve audio quality: When transcribing, it helps to remove annoying noise and hiss from the audio file of the video. Most transcription tools provide you with certain settings that will help you reduce the noise.

• Use time markers: Use the time markers of your transcription tool. This way you wouldn’t get stuck on a passage that you didn’t understand, for example. You set a time marker and continue writing. When finished, return to the time marks and listen to the passage again to transcribe there as well.

• Use headphones: It is best to put on noise-canceling headphones. Especially if you are working in a place where there is a lot of background noise. This will help you hear the text better and transcribe the video easily.

Use text modules for word count increase

Use many text modules multiple times, the tools can help you type faster.

• Text modules help you transcribe faster and better. Tools include InstanText, WordExpander, and OfficeSoft. If you use these programs, you can increase the speed of the typed word count per minute by almost a third.

• By doing this, you generate and save words that you use frequently. Abbreviations that you type are then autocompleted, i.e. automatically typed as written text.

• If you don’t have a tool available to do this, set your text program to correct errors.

• Tip: Already free tools help you to convert your speech to text.