Whether you’re a student needing to take notes from a lecture you recorded or a blogger trying to transcribe an audio interview, the following little GNOME app can help.
Turning an audio recording into text format is a time-consuming and sometimes tedious affair, with endless stop/starts as you hurriedly attempt to keep pace with the spoken word, rewind to double check, and so on.
I’m lucky in that I can write shorthand, but that’s little use when I need to accurately recount the words of others in a blog post.
Which is why using an audio player built for transcription is a really smart move.
Parlatype — GNOME audio player for transcription
Parlatype is a GNOME audio player built specifically for transcription.
And I do mean specifically.
Parlatype is clearly made by someone who’s had to transcribe from audio regularly. It has a set of minor sounding features that make a huge difference when hunkering down to the task of transcribing.
For example, when you hit the pause button the app automatically rewinds a couple of seconds. This sounds silly, but when you resume it’s easier to ‘pick up’ where you left off, in context, without losing the first couple of words.
Other features:
- See audio waveform
- Adjust playback speed (with no pitch altering)
- Rewind on pause (configurable)
- Timestamps
- LibreOffice macros
- Media key support
- Start on top
Install Parlatype on Ubuntu from a PPA
You can install Parlatype on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and up by adding the following repository to your Software Sources:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gabor-karsay/parlatype
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt install parlatype
To use just open the app and choose any audio file from your computer (it can be in any format that GStreamer supports, including mp3, WAV and ogg).
Whether you’re a blogger, a student or another, if you ever need to turn audio into text, Parlatype will make the whole experience easier.