Transcription

Now made aLOTeasier

The traditional approach to transcription, and often considered the simplest method, is to give your hand written text to a typist. It is bad enough for you to have to create the text, but the effort is doubled when you have to write it down in readable form. It is also hard work for the typist who has to decipher your writing, then read the text whilst typing, and he or she won't hesitate to let you know this.

Dictation makes things a lot easier for the author and the typist. Its most wasteful, pompous and ego-tripping manifestation is evident in the employment of the shorthand typist.

A more flexible solution is to use a voice recorder (dictaphone) and pass the output to a typist. These dictaphones used to be like miniature tape recorders which worked very well but required skill and patience when winding and rewinding the tape cassettes. Their cassettes had several moving parts and therefore a limited life.

Digital handheld voice recorders are now readily available, low-cost, high-performance and easy-to-use. The only items which need replacing are the batteries. These recorders can also be used for automatic transcription using voice recognition software.

Dictating into your computer using voice recognition software is one of the best methods available, because you can see and develop the final document, edit it and print it out yourself.

You won't have to go cap-in-hand to a typist ever again!

This is also a very low-cost solution because assuming you have a reasonably powerful computer, all you have to buy is the voice recognition software which comes with its own microphone. With practice, creating text in this way is much easier than handwriting or using a dictating machine because you are monitoring your work as it is produced.

More information about transcription and related products and services can be obtained from Pyxis Computer Services.

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