Here’s the Prescription for Automatic Transcription. On your Mac, open System Preferences. In the System Preferences window, select Dictation and Speech. In the Dictation and Speech window, select the option to turn dictation on, and make sure to select the appropriate microphone input. On most systems, the Internal Microphone will. ‎A rtf-text editor optimized for fast manual transcription of audio- or video material on the Mac. Now with subtitle editing support. Used around the world in research, education and journalism since 2008. MacBreak Weekly pick of the week on March 30, 2010. Features:. Media with tape behavior. C. ‎Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about Dictation - Speech to text. Download Dictation - Speech to text and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac OS X 11.0 or later, or Apple Watch. Apple's OSX Dictation Services. The free voice recognition software built into Apple's operating system is a great way to explore speech to text functionality on your Macintosh at no expense. Free dictation software for Mac was included beginning with OSX Mountain Lion, then refined and improved in OSX Yosemite, Mavericks and ElCapitan.

Yesterday, I got this email from a reader of this blog. I’ll paraphrase (won’t bore you will the smiles and lols). “Hey Kongo, thanks for all the advice on choosing a transcription headset. What would you recommend as the best transcription software for Mac? Thanks, Maggie.” I replied to her email and I thought I should post the reply on my blog for other transcribers that might be searching for a transcription software to use on their mac computers.

I cannot get office for mac to record a macro - Answered by a verified Microsoft Office Technician We use cookies to give you the best possible experience on our website. By continuing to use this site you consent to the use of cookies on your device as described in our cookie policy unless you have disabled them. Macro Recorder is not only a mouse recorder, keyboard recorder and player.It is also a very powerful automation software and even an EXE-compiler. All recorded keystrokes and mouse activity can be saved to disk as a macro (script) for later use, bound to a hotkey, extended with custom commands or even compiled to an EXE file (a standalone Windows application). Macro free download - Macro Express, Journal Macro, Easy Macro Recorder, and many more programs. Best Video Software for the Mac How To Run MacOS High Sierra or Another OS on Your Mac Best.

Now, let me be clear. By transcription software, I’m referring to software that’s going to assist you manually transcribe audio/video files. I’m not referring to software that automatically converts speech to text: aka dictation software, voice recognition software, speech recognition software. I prefer to refer to these types of software as dictation software.

And since we’ve digressed, let me share with you my 2 cents on dictation software. The accuracy of dictation software is poor – on average about 60%. Accuracy improves with good quality, single speaker audio. If you’re looking for a dictation software to automatically convert your audio to text, I’d recommend you don’t buy software that’s not cloud based.

Here’s why, speech recognition algorithms improve every day (machine learning etc). And you’ll not be able to take advantage of these improvements with an offline software (for instance Dragon Dictate). I’ve tried a few cloud based dictation services and they’re not bad – I got 90% accuracy on a YouTube video transcript. Most use either IBM Watson or Google Speech API.

Best Software For Mac Maintenance

Anyway, transcription software are meant for those of us who want to get a software that’s going to assist the manually transcription (= type out the text using our fingers and sometimes our feet!) of audio/video files. To reiterate, the main advantage of a transcription software over a normal audio/video media player is the ability to control audio/video playback.

Here were my requirements when I was searching for transcription software for my Macbook Air. 1) Easy configurable transcription controls. 2) Support video and audio of various formats and codecs. 3) Timestamp Support. 4) USB foot pedal support. Grab a cup of coffee and let’s look at each one of these in depth.

Key Features of a Good Mac Transcription Software

1. Configurable Transcription Controls

Any transcription software worth its salt supports keyboard hotkeys. And they are easily configurable. But the really good ones support global hotkeys. Which means that you are not restricted to typing on the word processing plane provided with the transcription software. Thus, you can transcribe into any word processor of your choice (Pages, Word etc) and the transcription hotkeys will work. And the advantages of using a dedicated word processor are numerous (spell check!).

2. Support Various Audio and Video Formats

As a transcriber, you do want to get a transcription software that supports a wide range of audio and video (very useful for slideshow videos) formats. For me, this is not usually a deal breaker because I can’t expect a transcription software to support all audio and video formats – and there is a lot of them. But a transcription software for mac must support .mp4 video format and .m4v/.m4a/.mp3/.mpg audio files. I have a dedicated audio and video converter that converts audio files to .mp3 files. And the .mp3 format work well on most mac transcription software.

3. Timestamp Support

A lot of my clients ask for timestamps/timecodes to be inserted into the transcripts. Timestamps make it easier for them to refer back to the video or audio. And if they’re using the transcripts to create a paper edit for a documentary project, timecoded transcripts provide the easiest and most efficient way to get a handle on a large block of video footage.

So, timecode support is a must. But again, this is a feature that is not very well supported in any of the mac transcription software. They usually do support it on their word processing plane, but getting the timecode to Pages or Word is challenging. There are workarounds that I’ll share with you.

4. USB Foot Pedal Support

Again, most mac transcription software support USB foot pedals. However, compatibility is an issue and it’s not guaranteed. Having said that, I own the Infinity IN-USB-1 and I’ve yet to come across a mac transcription software that does not support it.

Having gone through the 4 basic requirements for a mac transcription software, you really have only 2 choices: F5 or Express Scribe. InqScribe is a good transcription software, but it doesn’t support global hotkeys, which is a real shame. If you’re okay transcribing into their word processor, you can try it out. All other mac transcription software I found were very old versions (5 years) and were no longer actively supported.

Best Transcription Software for Mac

1. F5

I really like F5 and I use it exclusively to transcribe on my mac. It’s checks all the boxes and is perfect for my transcription needs. A while back it used to be free (as in beer), but that’s no longer the case. To be honest, I find their pricing model to be complicated. There’s a free version of F5 – which only allows you to transcribe the first 10 minutes of a video/audio file. A standard version, unlimited transcription (you can transcribe any length of audio/video file) but no USB pedal support, no waveform, memos and auto speaker changing. I recommend you get the pro version, mainly because of the USB pedal support (not sure why this is not in the standard version), and you’ll need a foot pedal (here are 3 I recommend) to play and pause F5 in the background.

Best Free Transcription Software For Mac Os

My other gripe with F5 is inserting timestamps into my transcripts. It’s easy enough when you’re transcribing into the F5 word processor – just press F8. Which reminds me. You’ll need to activate the F keys under System Preferences > Keyboard, for them to work on your Mac.

Anyway, back to inserting timestamps, there is no easy way to insert timestamps into Pages. You’ll have 2 options. Option 1 is switch to the F5 window, CMD + T (to generate the timestamp),and copy and paste the timestamp to Pages. Works, but as you can imagine, if you want to insert timestamps every 30 seconds, it’s a lot of work going back and forth between the F5 and Pages. The second option is write an apple script or use Keyboard Maestro to record a macro. I’d recommend keyboard maestro – very easy to use (if you want me to create a short how to video let me know in the comments section below). Here’s a link to the video – I don’t know why, but I ramble a lot in this video; bear with me.

I do know my way around code, so I have an apple script that I use to insert timestamps into my transcripts with one keyboard stroke. Other than that, F5 is simply great. I get better audio quality using F5, and it’s really very easy to use and customize. Definitely the best transcription software for mac. Download from Mac App Store.

Best Macro Software For Windows

2. Express Scribe Pro

Where to begin with Express Scribe. Some people love it, others hate it. Personally, I’m ambivalent. I’ve used it a lot in the past, but that’s before I found F5. I do have a lot of issues with NCH – the company that makes this software, but the software is pretty good.

You’ll want to get the pro version. I’ve had numerous issues with the “free” version and vowed never to install it again! But the pro version doesn’t come with adware, supports most USB foot pedals, and plays videos and a lot of other formats. Though, the audio quality is not that great – especially if you slow it down.

The interface is a little complicated and you’ll have to take time to get used to this mac transcription software. For instance, here’s how you insert timestamps into your transcript. You’ll need to first create a system wide hotkey to copy the timecode to the mac clipboard. You can create a hotkey via Options > Hot Keys. Once you’ve created the hotkey, adding a timestamp to your transcript on Pages involves hitting the hotkey and then CMD + V to paste the timestamp.

Free Software For Mac

Very easy, but I wish it was more intuitive. So yes, there is a steep learning curve on how to use Express Scribe for transcription – well worth it, because this software has a lot of customizable features that are going to help you become a very efficient transcriber. Download from Mac App Store.

That’s it for this post on mac transcription software. I hope you’ve found it worthwhile and please feel free to use the comment section below to share tips, suggestion, frustrations, reviews etc on the transcription software of your choice. Happy transcribing!

There are a handful of capable, solid spreadsheet apps for Mac, but we've got our money on Excel thanks to its rich feature set, cross-platform (and web) compatibility, and data management tools.

Microsoft Excel 2011

Platform: Mac OS X
Price: $120-200 (Part of Microsoft Office)
Download Page

Features

• Create spreadsheets with integrated equations
• Create attractive graphs from your data
• Organize and filter your tables
• Create thumbnail-sized 'sparkline' charts for viewing data at a glance
• Visually enhance your data with boards, highlighting, and more
• Automatically summarize your data with PivotTables
• Use VisualBasic to create macros and add additional functionality to Excel
• Use Excel's Automator actions to automate repetitive tasks
• The Excel Web App will let you access your spreadsheets from anywhere
• Comprehensive toolbar with the most commonly-used features
• Easily filter data so you're not distracted by data you don't need to see

Where It Excels

Excel is an incredibly feature-rich application, to the point where it can even get a little overwhelming, while still offering simple spreadsheet functionality. If you know how to type data into boxes and perform calculations in any spreadsheet app you know how to do it in Excel. You don't have to dive into anything too deep to perform the most common tasks. Graph and chart creation is also very easy, as those buttons are readily available in your toolbar. While Apple touts the beauty of Numbers, its spreadsheet application (see the competition section below for more information), Excel is highly capable of creating attractive images as well. Overall, it gets the job done whether that job is simple, complex, or even requires a pleasant aesthetic.

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What Is The Best Transcription Software For Mac

Best Macro Software For Windows

Where It Falls Short

Excel is really a spreadsheet app for power users, so it may be overwhelming for some. It's also been around for many years and it's hard to keep adding new, useful features to an app that already does its job well. As a result, Excel has become a little bloated. It can be very overwhelming to new users. Finding what you're looking for can be tough because there is so much there.

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Excel Macro For Mac

Assuming you get past the learning curve, one of the more annoying issues with Excel for Mac is that it's different from Excel for Windows. While the applications are very similar, they're developed by different departments and often times the Windows version ends up with features and functionality that aren't present in the Mac version (and vice-versa). The most notable feature to have this problem is macro support. Macro support is finally back in Excel 2011 for Mac, but it's both been included and removed from versions in the past. Missing features can be a minor annoyance for some and a major one for others, so before you jump into Excel on the Mac you should make sure you're getting the features you expect.

The Competition

Numbers ($20) is Apple's entry into the spreadsheet software market and it's not bad. Number has always favored its stylish graphs over its feature set, but that doesn't make it useless. It's a very serviceable spreadsheet application for most people, and is a good option if you don't need something as intense as Excel.

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Mesa ($34) and Tables (~$42) are both simple spreadsheet apps that, while very good, are hard to justify because of the cost. These two apps are very focused on offering a basic feature set and remaining focused, rather than becoming bloated software. The result is two very serviceable spreadsheet apps, but you have to wonder why you're paying so much for something that's not quite as capable as some cheaper apps.

Software For Mac Computers

Calc (Free) is the spreadsheet app that comes along with LibreOffice and is your best free option for spreadsheet work. It handles everything you'd except, from equations to graphs and more, plus it's capable of handling the Excel document format.

Best Free Transcription Software For Mac Download

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Have a favorite spreadsheet app we didn't mention? Share it in the comments.

Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.

Best New Mac Software

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Do you know that an average person writes up to 1000 words per hour and at the same time he/she can speak more than 4000 words? Does that make any sense? Yes, Of course, you don’t need to write 1000 words, just record your voice and convert it to the text and save your precious time.

Transcription is the procedure to convert any audio or video file into text and this job is done by the tool known as transcription software. If you are a Mac user then there is good news, we researched a lot and brought the best transcription software for Mac. This softwares not only saves you time but also makes the work interesting. Let’s discuss the best 11 transcription software for Mac (Although some of them also available on windows and other devices)

Best Transcription Software for Mac

1. Express Scribe

Express Scribe is proficient and powerful audio player software for PC or Mac developed to help transcribe audio recordings. This software is fast enough to convert an audio file to the text within seconds and at the same time, it is simple enough that any beginner can operate it effortlessly. You just need to drop/import a file, it automated AI automatically starts converting your file to text.

Express Scribe also offers to optimize your transcription and control over the playback features. However, this transcription software for Mac is free but if you want to use advanced features like ‘foot-pedal then you need to purchase the Pro version that costs $24.99 per month.

Features:

• Flexible speed playback (constant pitch)
• Aids audio and video playback
• Supports broadly audio layouts and encrypted files including MP3, M4A, DSS, WAV, etc.
• Automatically collects and loads records by internet
• Use ‘hotkeys’ for mouse-free playback when transcribing directly into Word.
• Transcribe dictations, voice notes, hearings, interviews, speeches, movies, music, etc

Price: Free | Pro- $24.99

Must Read: Best Flowchart Software for Mac

2. Descript

Descript is a leading Automatic and human-powered transcription software for Mac with a highly advanced user interface. We can describe it as smart software that automatically transcribes any audio and video files into text just by importing. Descript is managed and controlled by Google speech and claims that this smart UI tool imports it for free and syncs to your media, word for word with utmost accuracy.

Moreover, Descript employs world-class technologies and services to retain your information secure and confidential. Good thing is that it comes with a free version also but the bad is that it has limited access. The free version offers only 3 hours of transcription.

Features:

• Automated Transcription
• Outstanding UI
• Audio enhancing support
• Absence playback control
• Automated as well as manual

Price: Free | $12-24

3. HyperTranscribe

HyperTranscribe is the best transcription software for Mac with incredible conversion quality. It allows you control over playback of your audio or video files with simple keyboard regulators, including automatic looping. For caption purposes, Insert time codes and export your transcript as SBV Caption Format.

The best part we like in HyperTranscribe is that everything is performed in a single transcription window, so there’s no requirement to switch between a play window and a text window. The bad is that it has no free version, however, it has a free trial. The paid version has different plans; individual, student, government, and commercial with a price range of $19 to $1139.

Features:

• Competent UI
• Single window Solution
• Professional
• Full control over playback
• Comparatively expensive

4. InqScribe

InqScribe is straightforward and any beginner can easily transcribe files in it. InqScribe has no professional interface like mentioned above softwares because it does not have redundant features but has good elements that help to get work done. It is easy to control and especially designed for Mac to efficiently convert various layouts like mp3,mp4, AMR, etc into the text document form.

InqScribe has all basic features like play videos and type your transcripts in the same window, Insert timecodes, mouse-free media controls, etc. Also, it can effortlessly subtitle a complete movie! So basically, it is not a lack of features but a lack of a promising user interface.

Features:

• Foot pedal to control media playback
• Share transcript
• Subtitle the movie
• Multiple languages in the same script

5. Transcriva

Transcriva is the best transcription software for Mac when it comes to the user interface. Along with the outstanding interface, this is easy to use, professional, and seamlessly transcript files with accuracy. You can handily control the playback of video & audio with the help of the foot pedal feature. Import and drop files and use hotkeys or shortcuts to start and stop recording.

Features:

• Free transcription software
• Smooth interface
• Professional
• Beginner-friendly

6. VoxSigma speech to text

VoxSigma speech-to-text specially developed speech-to-text recognition software that automatically transcribes audio and video files to text. This software is primarily used for large quantities of transcription like adding subtitles and captions on movies and more. After importing files and transcription, you can further edit and control the playback.

Transcribing Software For Mac Free

Moreover, it also offers editing options after transcription is done. The software first recognizes the audio segments incorporating dialogue, then identifies the language being enunciated, and finally converts the speech portions to text.

Features:

• Support Mac and windows
• Support 30+ languages
• Speech over background music
• Time codes

7. NVivo

NVivo is one of the best transcription software that is useful for beginners as well as for professionals and supports Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. The intuitive editor of NVivo Transcription allows you to promptly make alterations, caption speakers, and assure that your transcription is formatted in the way you need it.

NVivo is not free but offers 15 minutes of free transcription and employs powerful automated transcription technology to deliver accurate results and support more than 28 languages. When it comes to price, NVivo is the most expensive transcription software, you need to pay up to $1249 for its service. You can easily import, analyze & explore virtually any data source all in one place.

Features:

• Annotations
• Automatic Transcription
• Data Visualization
• File Sharing
• Media Analytics
• Mixed Methods Research
• Multi-Language
• Playback Controls

8. Temi

If you are a beginner then Temi is the best suitable for you because of its super easy interface. After installing the software, you just need to select a video/audio file and it transcribes within 5 minutes. Temi supports any type of file and charges $0.25 per minute for transcription, no subscription, no other charges. This price is quite low in comparison to other softwares, especially for short-length files.

The good part is that its free version offers access to all features in the free version which is under 45 minutes. Temi uses TLS 1.2 encryption system with the support of a secure Amazon server to transmit your files.

Features:

• Simple navigation
• Fast and accurate
• Proprietary algorithm
• Review & edit option
• Custom timestamp
• Speaker identification

9. Dragon

Don’t go by the name, it is not the fire-spewing ancient giant. Dragon is considered the best transcription software known for accuracy and transcribes word-to-word speech. What is different in this software is that Dragon authorizes lawyers to create high‑quality documentation and save time and cash with Dragon Legal Anywhere.

Due to its high accuracy and professionalism, Dragon becomes the favorite tool for doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. Same like other softwares, Dragon also needs to import files and its AI-based system automatically converts files to text.

Dragon Transcription Software

Features:

• 99% accuracy
• 3x faster than typing
• Best for professionals
• Strong AI-based system
• Add your acronyms

10. Google Docs Voice typing

We all know, Google rules the world and this is because it has a solution for every problem. Similarly, Google Voice typing is the dominant free voice recognition engine which not only transcribes speech to text but also enables to rectification of the configuration of documents with voice commands.

Although, Google docs voice typing is accurate and free to use yet it supports only on Chrome, not other browsers. The best part is that it has voice formatting options in which you can speak which type of format you need and Google automatically do that. It also supports more than 45 languages.

Best Dictation Software For Mac

11. Apple dictation

Apple dictation is free to operate and works well on Mac even if you don’t require an Internet connection as it functions offline also. However, it does not have as rich features as other softwares. In this software, you can use your mouthpiece instead of a traditional input tool and with voice constraints, you can navigate and interact with your Mac.

The Voice Control of Apple dictation uses the Siri speech-recognition engine to improve on the Enhanced Dictation feature. You can even control the voice system by just saying ‘go to sleep’ and it pauses. And when you want to start again then simply say ‘wake up and it starts capturing voice. You can even give any command like punctuation marks, symbols, and can ask him to control the formatting, anything and everything is completely free.

Best Free Transcription Software For Mac Computer

Final Words

Transcription softwares are a very useful and time saver. You don’t need to sit for hours and type a long script for your next project. Whether you are a student, businessman, teacher, writer, editor, etc; the transcription software is for everyone. These softwares are free as well as paid based on requirements and features. We described the best 11 transcription software for Mac and hope it will do great help to you. Moreover, these softwares are quite easy to use, just drop the file and it is automatically transcribed into the text. If you need any changes then use simple commands as we mentioned in this post.