How to Transcribe an Audio Recording to Text for Free?

August 19, 2018 4 min read By Cogito Tech LLC.

Converting audio into text is necessary when a speech is given without the intention of having a record in written format. If you want to directly transcribe the audio into text you can use the free tools available for users to make their audio to text transcription process easier. It will not only save your time but also minimize the efforts to manually type each word giving you a facility to utilize the vocal skills and create stories, scripts, and other written documents.

Though there are many paid tools and software to transcribe the audio into texts if you cannot afford or don’t want to spend money on such things you have the best option to use Google docs service to perform this action with satisfying results.

Google docs, is a cloud-based online document-creating service to store data into different formats like a spreadsheet or word file, etc.

It is a type of doc service where users can create documents for normal writing purposes or for creating professional letters or business proposals. Google Docs offers automatically transcribe audio to text free with highly interactive tools to customize or format texts or other content on the document. Meanwhile, it is also providing a transcription facility for users to speak the words in their language, and it will be transcribed on this document just like written texts.

Transcribing with this cloud-based document service is not only enjoyable but also gives amazing results while ensuring the accuracy of words or sentences created by voice. This could be the best tool for people who prefer dictating rather than writing or are not in a situation to use their hands for doing such jobs or having better command and speediness on speaking overwriting. However, before you start to transcribe audio files to text free online you need to keep few things in mind and follow the steps given below to get the best results with voice tying.

transcribe audio to text

Read More: What is Transcription of Documents and how it is done?

Steps to Transcribe Audio to Text Free:

Step1: Find a noiseless place to do this task

The voice-based audio transcription process is done through earphone recording, as transcription through recording played via a speaker is not advanced enough to get satisfying results, so any kind of disturbance or background noise reduces the clarity to minimize the accuracy. Hence, you need to find a quiet space where you can do this job without any background noise that can cause disturbance resulting in a bad quality transcription.

Step2: Plug earphones and open Google Doc

After finding a peaceful space, now use an earphone over that you have to speak your words but make sure at the time of recording it hears only your voice through earphones. Now open the Google Doc and click on “start a new document” to start the typing.

Step3: Open voice tool and make sure the voice typing button appears

Here you need to open the voice typing tool from the dropdown menu or you can also use Command+Shift+S to enable this function. Before you start tying by voice, make sure you click “Voice Typing,” the recording button will appear on the left side of your document.

Step4: Check your language and make sure the microphone is turned on

Before you start typing also make sure that the microphone of your computer is turned on and working fine, as microphones and device settings may vary due to the system operating system that you can configure through manual instructions. If you have a Windows PC, you can check through the control panel whereas Mac users can find the same settings in the system preferences. Google offers voice typing functions with nearly every popular language in different accents and dialects. And to change the language using the drop-down menu on the recording button and select the language you would like to speak confidently.

Step5: Click the recording button and start speaking

To start the audio transcription process just click the voice typing button and the microphone icon will turn red to show the tool is active. When you speak the voice tool transcribe that you can also listen through your headphone. During the transcription don’t open a new window or close the Google Doc, as the voice tool will stop working and transcription will be paused. And while speaking also makes sure to say the words clearly in a normal talking tone and avoid speaking too slow or too fast, as fast speaking will reduce the accuracy of the transcription.

Step6: Keep watching your Transcription

Everything does not go well working with information technologically backed tools or services. So, you need to keep checking the tools it can stop anytime, and the transcription process halts. If it happens, just click on the voice typing button to turn it off and then click the same again to turn it on. For long hours recording, you may need to turn the tool off many times. And after completing transcribe audio to text process with Google you need to check the entire document, if there is an error like misspelling or grammatical mistakes, you can correct it manually and make the transcribed document foolproof for the purpose it has been created.

Summing-up

With these six steps, you can easily transcribe audio to text free app but if you want to use audio transcription service in your business and you don’t have time or looking to transcribe a large volume of documents or you have a bulk of audio files that you want to transcribe professionally you can outsource audio transcription service to any agency providing the transcription services for such needs. Cogito offers an audio-to-text transcription service for business organizations, legal establishments, educational institutes, business houses, and legal departments with the highest accuracy and incredible quality.

If you wish to learn more about Cogito’s data annotation services, please contact.