When you need to rapidly get lectures, interviews, podcasts and meeting minutes on text, manually transcribing audio can be excruciating and even soul-crushing. You don’t have the resources to hire a transcription service, but don’t worry, in this post, we will show you how to convert audio to text for free.
New tech has enabled developers to get improved audio to text converters to the general public. Some of these are even free and online.
Also, as new tech becomes available, your peers and competitors begin to use them too. As a result, you need to integrate this tech to stay on top of your game.
Different people can reap huge benefits from knowing how to convert audio to text. Think of students transcribing lectures, podcasters getting their interviews in writing to publish them online, you name it.
In this post, we will show you different methods on how to convert audio to text. Here’s is the table of contents. Feel free to jump to any section that interest you:
How to Convert Audio to Text With a Free Online Converter
A straightforward method for converting audio to text is just uploading your file to a free converter online.
In another post, we listed 4 Audio to text converters online for easy free transcriptions. Those are IBM Watson Transcribe Audio Demo, Bear File Audio to Text Converter and 360 Audio to Text Converter. Follow the link to check them out.
Following we will use the IBM Watson Transcribe Audio Demo, to exemplify how to convert audio to text online:
1. First, follow this weblink to the IBM Watson Transcribe Audio Demo page.
2. Scroll down the screen until you reach the “Transcribe Audio” section.
IBM Watson Transcribe Audio Demo allows you to either upload an audio file or use voice recording.
Also, you can choose the language, specify specific keywords to highlight and a checkmark if you wish the engine to detect multiple speakers.
3. For this example, choose “English” and tell it to spot the following keywords: “Artificial Intelligence” and “Face Recognition.”
4. Then, we upload a file that we have prepared previously.
5. After uploading the audio file, the application will play and transcribe it automatically.
Take into account that you will have to listen to the whole file as the software transcribes it, which could take some time.
You may also use the Bear File Converter or the 360 Converter to automatically transcribe audio files without playing the whole recording. However, they have file length limitations.
Follow these links to check out our detailed how-to’s on both audio to text converters online.
How to Convert Audio to Text in Word
If you own a Windows 10 PC, there is a workaround that you can apply to convert audio to text for free.
What you will do is set up the audio file that you want to transcribe on another device. Then, enable the voice typing feature in Windows and play the audio file into the PC’s microphone. You may also set up the audio file on the same computer so that the microphone picks up the audio.
Windows 7, 8 and 10 support speech recognition. Users activate the feature through the control panel. The built-in version in Windows 10 is the most advanced and produces the best results.
Windows speech-recognition works with all Windows programs, not just Microsoft Word. Therefore, you may also transcribe audio to other apps such as PowerPoint, Outlook and many more.
Here are the detailed steps:
1. Set up Windows Speech recognition via the Control Panel (search for Speech Recognition), start and follow the set-up wizard.
On Windows 10, you need to click the Start button, then select Settings > Time & Language > Speech.
Image from: Windows Support.
2. Copy the audio file that you want to transcribe on another device, such as a smartphone or tablet. You may also set it up on the same computer, but you need the PC’s microphone to be able to pick it up from the speakers.
3. Place the PC microphone near the speakers of the device with the audio file.
4. Open Microsoft Word with the file where you will place the transcript.
5. With the cursor on Microsoft Word, start Windows 10 dictation by pressing the Windows logo key + H. Your computer will start listening. Immediately, play the audio file near the PC microphone.
Image from: Windows Support.
6. You will have to wait for the entire audio file to play. Windows 10 will automatically transcribe it to the open Microsoft Word screen.
How to Convert Audio to Text on Mac
For Mac users, there is a similar workaround that you can use. As with Microsoft Word on Windows, it involves using Apple’s Dictation to transcribe the audio file from another device or the same computer.
Apple’s Dictation works with any MacBook Apps, not just word processors.
Here are the steps:
1. Copy the audio file that you want to transcribe on another device, such as a smartphone or tablet. You may also set it up on the same Mac computer, but you need its built-in microphone to be able to pick it up from the speakers.
2. Start Apple´s Dictation by choosing the Apple menu > System Preferences, click Keyboard, then click Dictation. Click On. If a prompt appears, click Enable Dictation.
3. Your Mac will start listening and typing speech on any App it has opened.
4. Play the audio file from another device or the same Mac.
5. You may also use an App called “Soundflower,” a Mac system extension that allows channeling audio from one application to another.
Transcribing Audio With an iPhone
Today’s mobile Smartphones have many features and capabilities, including being able to record and playback audio.
If you own an iPhone, there is a simple workaround that you can do to convert audio to text.
1. First, prepare a device other than the iPhone for playing back the audio file, such as another smartphone, your personal computer or laptop).
2. Use the iPhone dictation feature to transcribe the audio file to text. To do this, first start Apple dictation on the iPhone, put it close to the speaker of the other device and then playback the audio file (on the other device).
3. People typically use Apple dictation to transcribe human speech. However, you can also use it to copy audio files to text, provided they are of sufficient quality.
Check out our post about Audio to text on iPhone for a detailed how-to on using Apple’s dictation.
Other Methods
If you need advanced audio to text conversion, such as the ability to handle longer files or if you can’t wait for manual playback, there are many options. They are not free, but fortunately, most of them offer trial periods.
You will eventually have to pay if you want to use this software. However, at least you can try them out to see if they are a good fit for your needs.
Check out our post about 10 audio to text online converters for super-fast transcriptions where we show some options.
Text to Speech mp3 Converters
This blog post focuses on audio to text conversion. Also, there is a set of tools to do the opposite, converting text to speech. We cover them in a separate post; check out the following link:
10 Text to Speech mp3 Tools for Easy Conversion and Listening.
Begin Automatically Transcribing Audio to Text for Free
In this post, we shared different methods on how to convert audio to text for free.
Advance tech offers you many options for automatically transcribing audio to text for free, including free online converters, paid subscription software and even some useful workarounds with Microsoft Word or the Mac dictation feature.
Now we invite you to take action, pick a method and start integrating audio to text conversion into your business and life to reap the benefits of this new tech. You will get transcriptions done much faster and you will thank yourself for it.
For more on how audio to text converters are changing the foundations of content creation, check out our article Revolutionizing Content Creation: The Role of Audio Transcription Technology.
Are you considering or have you tried out audio to text converter software? How was your experience? Please let us know on the comments below.