Transcribe text from audio recordings with Listen N Write

[harlan4096]

Do you record audio and use it as a source for taking notes, e.g. for work or studying? Listen N Write is a freeware tool that may help you with that if you do.

It lets you listen to audio recordings to transcribe them without having to switch between two different programs for the same purpose.

Note: This is not a transcription software that converts audio to text. Melanie reviewed the program back in 2011; time to take another look and see how it has changed.

Listen N Write has two windows: one controls the audio player, the other the text editor.

Audio Player

The menu bar has four menus that list various important options. The File menu can be used to open an existing multimedia file; officially, the program only supports WAV and MP3, but I was able to play the audio from video files (AVI, MKV, MOV) as well.

You can optionally use the built-in Sound Recorder in Listen N Write to record audio. It works with internal microphones on laptops and the sound card (speakers). Audio recordings made with the program can only be saved in WAV format.

The Playback menu lets you play, pause, stop, jump back or forward or reduce/increase the playback speed. There is an option to navigate to a specific time stamp of the audio too. The one which I found most useful here was the bookmark option which lets you mark time points throughout the audio that can be used for quick reference. The View menu lets you disable the text editor (if you want to use it just for playing or recording audio). You can control the playback with the function keys (F3 to F7).

The playback bar has 7 buttons for opening files, pausing, go back, go forward, stop, recording the audio. The dictation key (F12) also called the Smart pause and play is useful when you want to pause the playback and type in the text editor.
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