Monday, June 1, 2009

Using Templates for Transcription

With the advances in software sophistication, both the Olympus DSS Player Pro Transcription Module and Philips SpeechExec Pro Transcribe software provide the ability to open Word or WordPerfect templates whenever a new transcription is started.

For both, settings can be made in the software to open templates based on author and/or worktype. For instance, if your author's recorder is configured to select a particular worktype for a dictation – say, "letter" – then the transcription software can be set to open a letter template file whenever a voice file with a worktype of "letter" is opened. If the worktype is "brief," then another template specific to briefs could be automatically opened.

This linkage also means that if you suspend the transcription and open it again later, the same document will be re-opened, allowing you to continue work on the original document and voice file.

The caveat to be aware of is that the new file created will be named with the same name as the voice file which triggered the opening of the template. For instance, if the voice file is called "JONE0043.ds2," then the created document will be named "JONE0043.doc." You could rename the file by doing a "Save As..." in your word processor, but the new file name will be not be linked to the generating voice file. If you want your documents named differently from the original voice file, our suggestion is to wait until you finish the transcription before renaming the typed document.

There are other considerations when using this methodology. If you have questions about how to use templates in the transcription software, feel free to contact us.

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