You might have heard of all about the text to speech applications and vice versa. However, what if you had an audio file, a song, a video clip, and you wanted the lyrics or the script in text format. The first way, obviously would be to play and pause the clip several times and type or write the words manually, which needless to say, would be tedious and time-consuming. The other easy and quick method would be to use an application or online tool to facilitate easy conversion of audio to text. Such applications though, not very accurate but still can document the text notes of an interview and even transcribe a video for YouTube.
Here The Best Ways To Convert Audio Files To Text
Microsoft Word Convert Audio To Text With The Most Popular App
The most commonly used word processing software today is MS Word, and it does have an option to transcribe audio to text by enabling a few settings.
Step 1. Turn on the online speech recognition option on your Windows 10 computer.
Step 2. Open Settings by pressing Windows + I and then click on Privacy.
Step 3. From the list of options under Privacy Settings, click on Speech and then slide the toggle button to turn it on.
Step 4. Open the Word application and play an Audio file so that it is picked up by your computer’s Mic and the audio will be converted to text.
Also Read: How To Change Google Text To Speech Voices On Android
Google Docs – Convert Audio To Text Online For Free
Like all the Windows applications, Google applications have become popular and are more commonly used.To allow Google Docs to transcribe audio to text, you need to follow these steps:
Step 1. Open Google Docs.
Step 2. Click on Tools, and then click on Voice typing. You can also use Ctrl + Shift +S as a shortcut.
Step 3. This will enable the voice to text functionality of Google Docs. Play the audio file on the same device or another device and place it near to the Google Docs. This will start convertingall the audible voices in the clip to text.
Bear File Converter – Free Online Tool To Convert Audio To Text
Also Read: How To Use Google Docs For Voice Typing
Another tool that you can is by going to a website, Bear File Convertor. This tool allows the users to choose the recognition engine from Baidu or CMU Sphinx. It works very well with converting a clear audio file like a speech or call recording to text. The results are incredible even with a few distracting noises.
However, do not try to convert any MP3 song files; the results are disastrous. You can try a clip where someone is speaking. Bear File does not accept uploading any file that is more than 3 MB, this being a restriction as the tool is free of cost.
Also Read: 10 Best Text to Speech Software for Windows PC
360converter. Coverts Both Audio And Video To Text
One of the best options to transcribe audio to text is to try 360 converters for converting both Video and Audio files to text. The transcripts can be saved as an MS Word file or PDF. The online converter has limited the size of each file that can be uploaded to 300 secs only. Professional users have more options allocated to them. However, I did not find the results to be very accurate.
Also Read: Best Speech To Text Apps For Android
Sobolsoft- A Dedicated Software To Convert Audio Into Text
If you are looking for a more professional solution to transcribe the audio into text, then you need to purchase software that has almost 100% results. There are no limits to upload files in terms of file size or time. On the other hand, you can open multiple files at once and convert them into one transcript. Although a free trial is available, you will still have to purchase a full version to enjoy the benefits.
Inqscribe – Manual Entry With A Difference
InqScribe is not an application to convert Audio into Text but can help facilitate that process with convenience. The interface is designed to cover your entire screen and split it intotwo parts where one part displays the audio or video clip, and the second part is an empty whiteboard, where you can type text manually.
This software is used mainly to insert captions and subtitles in the video clip and allows the users to set the time notations when the exact words must be displayed. Although, it requiresmanual entry, and you could do the same without any software, But Inqscribe provides a unique and amazing experience as it also supports a foot pedal to control the media that is being played.
InqScribe is not free, but a 14-day free trial is available.
Speech Notes – Speech To Text – For Android Users
The last option for converting audio to text is to use Speech Notes on your Android smartphone. The application is free of cost and has positive reviews on the Google Play Store with a rating of 4.1. The results are pretty decent for Audio files and transcribe audio to text process is very much accurate.
How To Convert Audio Files To Text In Quick And Simple Steps – Which Method Did You Like The Best?
Although there are many software, applications and tools to convert Audio to Text, this task is still carried out manually in most places where professional transcribers do the job. YouTubers are known to use LightRoom, which is a video editing software and also includes converting audio into text. However, the result of any method used is not 100% accurate, and this task still requires human intervention.
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