In setting up a transcription business, free transcription software is a necessity. But this kind of software is also indispensable tools for those who have decided to leave regular employment and become home based virtual assistants. There are programs that need to be purchased, but why opt for those when you can just download equally effective tools for free? Here are ten of the best options available for download. It is up to you to examine the pros and cons of each and decide which fit your needs. All of these platforms are fully automated systems that do not need additional personnel to run, and most are pretty straightforward and require nothing more than basic computing skills.
10. Listen N Write
Aug 22, 2018 Trint is a slick automated transcription service with good editing software, but it's best suited for simpler transcription tasks. Express Scribe is highly popular and versatile transcription software that’s compatible with a wide range of setups, including Mac systems. Express Scribe was the first transcription player I ever used, and I still use it regularly – particularly for its audio cleanup features, which I’ve.
Listen N Write is a standard transcription software that is designed for MP3 and WAV files. It does not take up so much space in your computer, yet it has the basic capabilities expected of any transcriptions software, including playback, text editing, key control and book marks. Your transcription tasks are significantly simplified and the tool is effective in helping you write what you are listening to as fast and as accurately as you need to. But you need to work hard still, because it has no automatic transcription features nor does it have voice or speech recognition technology.
9. VoxSigma
The VoxSigma suite is an offering from Vocapia Research. It has multiple language capabilities, and among the world languages it supports are Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, German, English, Mandarin, and Portuguese. This software is intended for professional use and for hefty workloads. It works best in dealing with challenges such as transcribing a speech recording with a noisy background. It is also designed to deal with loads and loads of audio and video files that need transcription in real-time or in batches. The VoxSigma suite is suited to the requirements of call-center data transcription.
8. Enhilex Medical Transcription Software
The Enhilex Medical transcription software is more than a tool for medical transcriptionist. It is also great for word and folder listing and in managing related organizing tasks. Your folders will self sort and there is no limit to the words and folders that it can manage. The full version will cost you a few dollars, but the trial version is absolutely free.
7. InqScribeBest Transcription Software For Mac 2018 Reviews
InqScribe also supports multiple languages and has the capacity insert time codes and utilize analysis codes. It is simple to use and very flexible such that the strengths of the user are maximized. You can view a video and transcribe it using one window. One distinguishing feature of InqScribe is its capacity to creating subtitled movies. Why not convert your transcribed work into a movie with subtitles? You can also use a foot pedal for controls, leaving both hands to type. In this way, you get to complete your workload and finish deadlines on time.
6. Dragon NaturallySpeaking
What is “Dragon Naturally Speaking?” This innovative software is offered by Nuance Communications. Its Mac version is called “Dragon Dictate.” This tool has three main functions, namely command input, dictation, and text-to-speech. This program has voice recognition software that becomes handy in a network set-up as it has good voice profiling capacity. You may use this to dictate text that is soon transcribed in written form. Customization of commands is allowed in the Pro version.
5. MacSpeech Scribe
For those who prefer to use Apple hardware and software, MacSpeech Scribe is our recommendation. It is a very efficient and smart tool to use, and guarantees fast transcription speeds. Its main function is to transcribe recorded dictation by a single speaker that is saved in any of the following standard audio file types: wav, .mp4, .m4a, .m4v, .aif, and aiff. This program can process recording made using any handheld devices for as long as they are in the supported formats. Nuance Communications owns this software now.
4. HyperTRANSCRIBE
HyperTRANSCRIBE by Research Ware is an easy to use tool for a huge array of video files and audio files. This tool employs QuickTime to play various media formats, including .MP3, MPEG, WAV and AVI. HyperTRANSCRIBE is one of the most convenient transcription programs available in the market today, and it comes with a pedal, freeing your hands for typing. This tool is guaranteed to give you the speed that you need in transcribing audio file to text documents pronto.
3. MAXQDA
MAXQDA is a text analysis software that does an effective and efficient comparative analysis of audio or video and document files for assessment purposes. And since MAXQDA has its own built-in media player, professional-level transcription can be done directly. Very handy transcription tools are provided, such as pause and playback, sync mode, time stamps, etc. The output from this program may also be used in another transcription software.
2. EureScribe
Another transcription software that is guaranteed to ease out the challenges of the job is EureScribe. This program supports many audio and video formats such as WMA, WAV, MPEG, AVI, DVD, and MP3. Keyboard shortcuts make the job much faster than it would be if you’d use a lot of the mouse. Text transcriptions are save in RTF format or as subtitles.
1. Express Scribe
Whether your system runs on Mac or PC, the Express Scribe transcription tool with it foot pedal control is sure to assist you in coming up with a professional job every single time. You can also opt to just use the hot keys, of course, but you can maximize all the features of this program for fast results. And you won’t have to pay a single penny for multi-channel control, file management, and playback features.
Yesterday, I got this email from a reader of this blog. I’ll paraphrase (won’t bore you will the smiles and lols). “Hey Kongo, thanks for all the advice on choosing a transcription headset. What would you recommend as the best transcription software for Mac? Thanks, Maggie.” I replied to her email and I thought I should post the reply on my blog for other transcribers that might be searching for a transcription software to use on their mac computers.
Now, let me be clear. By transcription software, I’m referring to software that’s going to assist you manually transcribe audio/video files. I’m not referring to software that automatically converts speech to text: aka dictation software, voice recognition software, speech recognition software. I prefer to refer to these types of software as dictation software.
And since we’ve digressed, let me share with you my 2 cents on dictation software. The accuracy of dictation software is poor – on average about 60%. Accuracy improves with good quality, single speaker audio. If you’re looking for a dictation software to automatically convert your audio to text, I’d recommend you don’t buy software that’s not cloud based.
Here’s why, speech recognition algorithms improve every day (machine learning etc). And you’ll not be able to take advantage of these improvements with an offline software (for instance Dragon Dictate). I’ve tried a few cloud based dictation services and they’re not bad – I got 90% accuracy on a YouTube video transcript. Most use either IBM Watson or Google Speech API.
Anyway, transcription software are meant for those of us who want to get a software that’s going to assist the manually transcription (= type out the text using our fingers and sometimes our feet!) of audio/video files. To reiterate, the main advantage of a transcription software over a normal audio/video media player is the ability to control audio/video playback.
Here were my requirements when I was searching for transcription software for my Macbook Air. 1) Easy configurable transcription controls. 2) Support video and audio of various formats and codecs. 3) Timestamp Support. 4) USB foot pedal support. Grab a cup of coffee and let’s look at each one of these in depth.
Key Features of a Good Mac Transcription Software
Any transcription software worth its salt supports keyboard hotkeys. And they are easily configurable. But the really good ones support global hotkeys. Which means that you are not restricted to typing on the word processing plane provided with the transcription software. Thus, you can transcribe into any word processor of your choice (Pages, Word etc) and the transcription hotkeys will work. And the advantages of using a dedicated word processor are numerous (spell check!).
As a transcriber, you do want to get a transcription software that supports a wide range of audio and video (very useful for slideshow videos) formats. For me, this is not usually a deal breaker because I can’t expect a transcription software to support all audio and video formats – and there is a lot of them. But a transcription software for mac must support .mp4 video format and .m4v/.m4a/.mp3/.mpg audio files. I have a dedicated audio and video converter that converts audio files to .mp3 files. And the .mp3 format work well on most mac transcription software.
A lot of my clients ask for timestamps/timecodes to be inserted into the transcripts. Timestamps make it easier for them to refer back to the video or audio. And if they’re using the transcripts to create a paper edit for a documentary project, timecoded transcripts provide the easiest and most efficient way to get a handle on a large block of video footage.
So, timecode support is a must. But again, this is a feature that is not very well supported in any of the mac transcription software. They usually do support it on their word processing plane, but getting the timecode to Pages or Word is challenging. There are workarounds that I’ll share with you.
Again, most mac transcription software support USB foot pedals. However, compatibility is an issue and it’s not guaranteed. Having said that, I own the Infinity IN-USB-1 and I’ve yet to come across a mac transcription software that does not support it.
Having gone through the 4 basic requirements for a mac transcription software, you really have only 2 choices: F5 or Express Scribe. InqScribe is a good transcription software, but it doesn’t support global hotkeys, which is a real shame. If you’re okay transcribing into their word processor, you can try it out. All other mac transcription software I found were very old versions (5 years) and were no longer actively supported.
Best Transcription Software for Mac
Audio Transcription Software Mac
I really like F5 and I use it exclusively to transcribe on my mac. It’s checks all the boxes and is perfect for my transcription needs. A while back it used to be free (as in beer), but that’s no longer the case. To be honest, I find their pricing model to be complicated. There’s a free version of F5 – which only allows you to transcribe the first 10 minutes of a video/audio file. A standard version, unlimited transcription (you can transcribe any length of audio/video file) but no USB pedal support, no waveform, memos and auto speaker changing. I recommend you get the pro version, mainly because of the USB pedal support (not sure why this is not in the standard version), and you’ll need a foot pedal (here are 3 I recommend) to play and pause F5 in the background.
My other gripe with F5 is inserting timestamps into my transcripts. It’s easy enough when you’re transcribing into the F5 word processor – just press F8. Which reminds me. You’ll need to activate the F keys under System Preferences > Keyboard, for them to work on your Mac.
Anyway, back to inserting timestamps, there is no easy way to insert timestamps into Pages. You’ll have 2 options. Option 1 is switch to the F5 window, CMD + T (to generate the timestamp),and copy and paste the timestamp to Pages. Works, but as you can imagine, if you want to insert timestamps every 30 seconds, it’s a lot of work going back and forth between the F5 and Pages. The second option is write an apple script or use Keyboard Maestro to record a macro. I’d recommend keyboard maestro – very easy to use (
I do know my way around code, so I have an apple script that I use to insert timestamps into my transcripts with one keyboard stroke. Other than that, F5 is simply great. I get better audio quality using F5, and it’s really very easy to use and customize. Definitely the best transcription software for mac. Download from Mac App Store.
Free Transcription Software
Where to begin with Express Scribe. Some people love it, others hate it. Personally, I’m ambivalent. I’ve used it a lot in the past, but that’s before I found F5. I do have a lot of issues with NCH – the company that makes this software, but the software is pretty good.
Transcription Software For Free Mac
You’ll want to get the pro version. I’ve had numerous issues with the “free” version and vowed never to install it again! But the pro version doesn’t come with adware, supports most USB foot pedals, and plays videos and a lot of other formats. Though, the audio quality is not that great – especially if you slow it down.
The interface is a little complicated and you’ll have to take time to get used to this mac transcription software. For instance, here’s how you insert timestamps into your transcript. You’ll need to first create a system wide hotkey to copy the timecode to the mac clipboard. You can create a hotkey via Options > Hot Keys. Once you’ve created the hotkey, adding a timestamp to your transcript on Pages involves hitting the hotkey and then CMD + V to paste the timestamp.
Very easy, but I wish it was more intuitive. So yes, there is a steep learning curve on how to use Express Scribe for transcription – well worth it, because this software has a lot of customizable features that are going to help you become a very efficient transcriber. Download from Mac App Store.
Best Transcription Software
That’s it for this post on mac transcription software. I hope you’ve found it worthwhile and please feel free to use the comment section below to share tips, suggestion, frustrations, reviews etc on the transcription software of your choice. Happy transcribing!
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