Podcast transcripts for podcasters

Why a transcript is worth the editing

Some listeners cannot hear audio, some would rather read, and some want to find the bit where you mentioned a book. A transcript on your own episode page serves all of them. It also gives a page text for readers and search engines to see, but no ranking result is promised: it helps people first, and that is the reason to do it.

Episode workflow

1. Export the finished episode as MP3 or WAV from your editor.
2. Upload it above, choose the language, and let the transcript run.
3. Rename speakers (labels cover up to eight, with a free account).
4. Fix guest names, brands and jargon. Add a heading for each topic using the timestamps.
5. Publish the text under the player and pull two or three quotes for social posts.

Show notes, chapters and quotes

Timestamps let you build chapter markers: note where each topic starts, and copy that into the episode description or a chapters list. Quotes should be checked against the audio before they go on a graphic. Export plain text or Markdown for the page, or SRT and VTT if you also publish a video version of the show.

Clean text or every word

Decide how close to the audio the published text should be. A lightly edited version, with the umms and false starts removed and the meaning untouched, reads better on a page. A word-for-word version suits an interview where the exact phrasing matters. The draft you get leans towards tidy, so for a strict word-for-word page, listen back and restore anything it smoothed over. Whichever you choose, say on the page that the text is an edited transcript.

Guests and permission

Tell guests the episode will have a published transcript, particularly for sensitive interviews, and honour requests to trim. Upload only episodes you made or have permission to use. Uploading sends the file to our server.

Drafts you review

A raw transcript is a draft: jingles, ad reads with music, laughter and crosstalk will need cleaning, and names will be misspelt. Without an account one file can be up to 15 minutes and 25 MB. A free account lifts those per-file limits and keeps your transcripts in a library you can search, so for a full-length recording create one instead of cutting the file up.