Creating Transcripts

There are a few tools that can create transcripts or caption files for audio or video. While these are good resources to help you get started, remember that transcripts and captions should always be reviewed by a human. 

Creating a Transcript/Captions With Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is a great tool for both editing your video and getting a transcript. It can even generate captions from the transcript if desired. To generate captions, follow the instructions below:

  1. Create a new project. 
  2. Under Import, select your video from your computer and click the button “Create”. 
  3. To open the Captions and Graphics workspace, select “Window” from the top navigation menu, then “Workspaces”, and “Captions and Graphics”. 
  4. If you are in the “Transcript” tab select “Transcribe Sequence”. If you are in the tab “Captions”, select “Create Transcription”. A pop-up menu will appear asking how you would like the transcript. Most of the default settings can be left as they are. Select ‘Transcribe”.
  5. You can then choose to export the transcript as a text file. You can also choose to have captions generated from the transcript by selecting the “CC” icon and selecting “Create Captions” in the pop-up menu. The default settings in this pop-up menu should be fine to leave as they are. The captions can then be exported as an SRT file.
  6. When you are ready to upload the captions to your video, go to YouTube Studio and select the video you want to upload the captions to. Click the option “Subtitles” from the left-hand navigation.
  7. Select the language of the video, and then select the option “Upload File” > “With Timings”.
  8. Edit the captions as needed if you haven’t already. 
  9. When you are finished select “Publish”. This will add the captions as a sidecar file that can be turned on or off on the video. It does not actually change the video itself. 
Note: Keep in mind that while machine captions can help in the transcription and captioning process, they are often inaccurate and depend heavily on video quality. Be sure to go through your transcript or captions to edit any typos, misspelled words and names, or punctuation. 

Creating a Transcript With Otter.ai

Otter.ai is a free or paid tool that can produce a transcript of a video. They provide up to 600 minutes of audio that you can transcribe for free each month. Depending on the project, that may be adequate, or they do offer paid plans.

  1. Sign-in to Otter.ai.
  2. If you already have your audio, select “Import” and add your file. You can also record audio directly in Otter.ai.
  3. Select “Go to transcript” and allow time for processing. 
  4. Edit the transcript as needed.
  5. To export the transcript, select the “My Conversations” tab in the left-hand navigation. 
  6. Select the three horizontal dots next to the transcript and choose “Export”. 
  7. Choose your file format and export.

Create a Transcript With Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word includes a “Dictate” feature that allows you to generate a transcript by speaking directly into the microphone, or uploading an audio file. However, Microsoft Word does not auto-generate captions. Step by step instructions for creating a transcript through Microsoft Word can be found on their website.

Other Free Tools to Create Captions

Additional tools are available to create captions, but they do not generate a machine version of the text beforehand. Amara and Happy Scribe are a few tools that allow you to create captions from scratch. While it may be tedious to start from scratch, these options tend to work better for videos that have poor audio quality or other issues where machine captions are not able to be generated.