To view a transcript for a file, do one of the following:
- Double-click the desired file in the files list.
- Select a file in the files list and press Command-2 or choose View > Transcript.
In transcript mode, the window has three main panels:
- On the left is the speakers list which displays the speaker names used in the transcript. The panel width can be adjusted by dragging on the right edge.
- In the middle is the transcript with file name shown at the top and various controls (including the current time) on a lower toolbar.
- On the right is the Viewer (for video files) and buttons in the lower toolbar to view either the Custom Words panel, Search panel or Media panel. The panel width can be adjusted by dragging on the left edge.
To return to the files list, do one of the following:
- Click the Files button in the upper left of the window.
- Choose View > Files
- Press Command-1
The Transcript Panel
Transcripts are shown as a series of speaker ranges. A speaker range is a group of words which are assigned to a speaker. Each speaker range starts with the speaker name.
When you first view the transcript of a file, the unplayed words will be shown in grey and they change to black once played. The current word is always shown in orange. If the current time of the media file is before the first word, then an orange arrow will be displayed (as above). The transcript scrolls automatically to keep the current word visible at all times.
Clicking on a word will locate the media file to that time and continue playback if necessary.
Navigating Transcripts
The current time (or timecode if present) is displayed in the left of the lower toolbar, along with playback speed controls and Favorite button.
By default playback speed is normal (1.0x) but can be increased to 1.5x or 2.0x by clicking the appropriate button or can be increased by pressing Command-] and decreased by pressing Command-[
The navigation controls allow you to play/pause, move to previous/next word, previous/next sentence and previous/next speaker range.
All these buttons have a keyboard shortcut which is shown in a tooltip when the cursor is moved over the button. The navigation controls can be hidden or shown by choosing View > Hide/Show Navigation Controls.
Above the navigation controls is the scrub bar, which shows the current position within the media file and allows you to move to any time in the file by dragging on it. The current word will be automatically scrolled to the middle of the transcript.
Above the scrub bar are the editing controls which are covered in the next section and are used to make changes to the currently selected word(s). The editing controls can be hidden or shown by choosing View > Hide/Show Editing Controls.
Searching Transcripts
To search for words in the transcript, view the search panel by selecting the Search button in the lower toolbar and do one of the following:
- Click in the search field in the right panel.
- Press Command-F
It is possible to search for words assigned to any speaker or a single specific speaker. Click the popup menu to the left of the search field, to choose which speaker should be searched.
Enter the search words in the search field and press Return or Enter. Search results are shown with the searched word(s) in context. The first search result will automatically start playing and the transcript will highlight the current word. Click on any search result to play it.
To move to the next search result, do one of the following:
- Press Down
- Press Command-G
To move to the previous search result, do one of the following:
- Press Up
- Press Shift-Command-G
To clear the search results:
- Click the close button in the right side of the search field.
The ? character can be used to specify a single wildcard and * can be used to specify multiple wildcard characters.
e.g. a search term of "the*" would result in matches for the words the, their and they etc.
The Media Panel
The Media panel in Transcript mode is identical to the Media panel in Files mode but with the addition of a Relink button for each file.
Audio channels can be enabled or disabled by clicking the checkbox on the left. The current position can be changed by dragging on the waveform.
Each source file has a Relink button, which is used to choose a new source file that will be used for playback. When relinking source files, there are two important rules:
- The new source file must be the same duration as the original source file.
- The new source file must have the same audio track and channel layout as the original source file.