Effortless Audio Transcription: Free Tools and Step-by-Step Guide
Learn how to automatically transcribe audio files to text for free using VB Audio Cable and Google Docs. Follow this tutorial for a seamless transcription process.
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Google Docs - How to Use Free Audio to Text Transcription
Added on 09/06/2024
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Speaker 1: If usually you transcribe any type of audio or audio with video files for different platforms or different purposes manually it takes a lot of work. Fortunately there are several different ways that you can automatically transcribe audio files directly to text and then manually edit any spelling or punctuation errors. In this tutorial I'm going to show you how you can transcribe automatically for free with no limits. So what you need is a simple software plugin called VB Audio Cable which is completely free. First is to download then install VB Audio Virtual Cable. The link to download is in the description below. And you also need to have Google Docs which I believe you have. Google Docs is completely free. You just need a Google or Gmail account. If you don't have you can create one for free. To download this Audio Virtual Cable go to the website then click Audio Apps. Then down on the right side download either for Windows or Mac. Install the downloaded file by first extracting files. Open the files in a folder then locate the file to install. You can either install VB Cable Setup the first one or the 64-bit extension. To check if your computer is a 64-bit or that 2-bit in Windows type about your PC in search bar. Click and run as administrator otherwise it won't allow you to install. Something to note, once you install the audio driver you will not be able to hear any sound coming out of your speakers or headphones because it's going to change your output speaker to the virtual cable. Fortunately you can change it back so you can hear the sound. Now installation is complete and successful. You might reboot your system to finalize the installation if need be. Now go down on Windows System Tray. Right click on the sound icon and then Open Sound Settings. Then scroll down to Manage Sound Devices. Under Output Devices enable VB Audio Virtual Cable. Disable the other output devices. Under the Input enable VB Audio then disable the other inputs. Most of the time VB Cable should change inputs and outputs automatically once you install it. Next go to Google Docs. We said earlier Google Docs is completely free. You just need a Gmail or a Google account to start. So start a new document. Go to Tools then Voice Typing or press shortcut CTRL plus SHIFT plus S. You can open a file on your computer or even a play video and Google will automatically transcribe. I will play a video from YouTube to show you an example. Now click on the microphone in Google Docs on the left side and then on whatever file on your computer that you want Google to automatically transcribe. So as you can see it has done a pretty good job of transcribing this file automatically for me. Of course there are some things I would have to do or change and I will have to edit overall. Although it has done a great job. Much less work to do in this way. This same method can be used with Microsoft Word in place of Google Docs.

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