Audio to Text Converter

Transcribe audio to text with our AI audio to text transcription tool. 120+ languages and 45+ formats supported.

G2 2023 Leader Award G2 2023 Momentum Leader Award
Rated 4.8/5 based on 850+ reviews

Convert Audio to Text In 3 Easy Steps

  1. Upload your recording or share your URL

    With our uploader, you can Import your file from anywhere: a local file, Google Drive, Youtube, Dropbox and more.
    The first 10 minutes are free and there's no file limit.
  2. Select the language and transcription method

    Our automatic audio to text converter is lightning fast and 85% accurate.
    With our human service, your transcript will be transcribed and proofread by an expert and native speaker and delivered with 99% accuracy.
  3. Proofread and Export the Transcript

    You might need to proofread and edit the final transcript with our easy-to-use transcription editor.
    If you select our human service, your transcript will be ready within 24 hours.

Transcribe Audio to Text with Happy Scribe

Audio transcription is the process of converting an audio file into a text file. That may be any audio recording, such as an interview, academic study, a music video clip, or a conference recording. There are plenty of scenarios where having a text file is more convenient than an audio recording. Transcription is useful for podcasts, research, subtitling, transcribing phone calls, dictation, etc...

These are the 3 main ways to transcribe audio to text with Happy Scribe:

Free Audio to Text Converter

We offer our audio to text converter free of charge for the first 10 minutes, a quick solution for those looking for immediate, free audio to text transcription. The platform can work with various types of audio files, and users can edit the text after the audio to text transcription to make sure that the final document meets their specific needs. With the fully automatic audio to text converter tool, Happy Scribe can reach accuracy levels of up to 85%.

Our Dedicated Audio To Text Editor

If you don't mind spending some more time perfecting your audio to text files, what you can do is use our online transcription software. This free interactive editor enables you to listen to the audio file while transcribing it, allowing you to replay the audio as many times as you need. You can use our free audio to text transcription editor both from your dashboard or directly in the editor page.

Human Transcription Services

Another option when converting audio to text is to hire a freelance transcriber or employ transcription services like Happy Scribe. We work with the best transcribers in the world to provide you with top notch transcripts. Our human transcription service is available in English, French, Spanish, German and many more languages.

Step-By-Step: Using Our Audio to Text Converter

The basic steps for using Happy Scribe's transcription service are as follows.

1. Sign Up and Choose Between Transcribing and Subtitling Your File

Click here to sign up for our free trial. We won't ask you for your credit card and you'll be able to upload your files right away.

Once you have signed up you'll be asked to choose between transcription and subtitles. Remember that if you are looking to transcribe your audio to create a subtitle file afterwards you can just use our subtitle generator to get the job done in minutes.

2. Upload your Audio File and Select the Language

With our uploader, you can import your file from anywhere, whether it's on your locally on your laptop, Google Drive, Youtube, or Dropbox. Remember that you have 10 minutes of automatic transcription for free. Once the upload is finished just hit the "Transcribe" button and your audio will be processed.

3. Use Our Transcription Editor

Thanks to our transcription editor proofreading your transcripts is super easy. Using the rewind feature, you can play your audio as many times as you want. You will also be able to add speaker names, display the time code... etc. Once you have ensured everything is fine, you can proceed to download the transcript. You will be able to export the file in multiple text or subtitle formats.

Why transcribing audio to text

There are many different applications of converting your recordings to text. Here we tried to summarise the most popular reasons for audio transcription.

Transcribe research interviews

When conducting qualitative or research, you might want to document your interviews and meetings. Transcribing all your recordings is the perfect way to make your findings more accessible. Interview transcripts will also enable you to create searchable text documents, fastening the process of navigating all the data. Our transcription services for academic research are fast, precise and affordable. This service is also super useful for journalists.

Add subtitles to a video

When manually adding subtitles to a video, you need to write down the speech of the audio into a text file, and later synchronise it with the video. Using an audio to text converter will do the trick, and fasten the process of creating subtitles. However, Happy Scribe has a dedicated tool to automatically generate subtitles out of a video file; meet our subtitle generator.

This tool enables video editors and content creators to add subtitles to their videos in a snap. No more manually transcribing your audio files. Generate your subtitles automatically and burn them into your video in a matter of minutes. Just plug and play!

Create captions

Another use case when transcribing your audio files is to create captions out of the speech in a video. Captions are useful to make a video more accessible to everyone. More than that, they help to make your footage dynamic, and understandable to a wider audience. If you are a video editor, having to manually transcribe every piece of speech is just exhausting. Once again Happy Scribe comes to your rescue. Our automatic transcription software will generate captions out of the speech in no time.

Get a transcript of your podcast

Converting audio to text has also many applications for the podcast industry. Transcribing a podcast and uploading it to your website enables podcasters to tap into a wider audience, as no only the will have listeners but also readers! That's why podcast transcription services like Happy Scribe are a great tool for content creators seeking to reach a wider audience.

Transcribe the audio from class lectures

For students trying to record their lessons, audio transcription is the perfect tool. Transcribing academic lectures is perfect to review your class notes and prepare yourself for any upcoming exam.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • What are the advantages of converting audio to text?

    There are numerous advantages to transcribe audio to text. When you transcribe audio, you make your content more accessible for the Deaf, hard of hearing, and non-native language speakers. Transcribing audio to text can improve SEO because Google can't index audio.

  • What are the main ways to convert audio to text?

    There are three main methods to do so; doing it yourself (DIY), using an automatic transcription software, or using a human transcription service. Happy Scribe offers all three options. Manually converting your file to text is the free method, but also extremely time-consuming. Our automatic transcription software uses the state-of-the-art speech recognition technology to transcribe your audio in a few minutes with 85% accuracy. Our human transcription service provides the highest accuracy rate and delivers in 24 hours.

  • How long does it take to transcribe audio into a text file?

    The amount of time it will take to transcribe your file depends on the length of your audio file, the quality of the audio, and whether or not you transcribe the audio yourself or use a software that transcribes for you. If your audio quality is good and you are experienced at transcribing audio to text you can expect to take 4 hours to convert 1 hour of audio. If you have poor audio or are a novice at transcribing audio to text this may take longer. In contrast, the best audio to text converter can convert audio to text in a few minutes. Furthermore, a human transcriber from Happy Scribe can provide you with a proofread & high-quality transcript within 24 hours.

  • What is the difference between transcription and translation?

    Transcription involves converting audio to text. Transcribing audio to text involves taking an audio file and converting it to a text document verbatim and in the same language that the original speaker used. The best audio to text conversion can take an audio file in Spanish and convert it into a Spanish text file. On the other hand, translation is the process of taking a piece of audio or written text and converting it into another language. For example, if you have a text document in English but want it converted to French, that is translation.

  • Do you offer free transcription?

    At the moment we just offer a free transcription trial of 10 minutes, so users can be able to interact with our tool and assess the quality of our transcription software.

  • Are there any apps that can convert audio to text?

    There's several android apps in the market that offer dictation and fast speech to text transcription. If you are an iPhone user, there's as well some iOS alternatives that can help you in a moment of trouble.

Customer Reviews
Rated Excellent 4.8/5 based on 850+ reviews
  • Great software with clean interface
    Great software with clean interface. Saves me so much time I wish I found it earlier.
    Jeroen Thibaut - Trustpilot
  • I am amazed at the quality of…
    I am amazed at the quality of transcription. There are some words that are phonetically similar that need to be corrected but for the most part the speech to text is excellent.
    Daniel Herrick - Trustpilot
  • Decent
    Decent. Some mistakes here and there but generally on the mark!
    Yemi O - Trustpilot
  • Easy to use service
    Easy to use this service and I got exactly what I needed. I would definitely recommend to anyone who is looking for good, professional transcription services.
    Lynn Hayne - Trustpilot
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