The Encyclopedia of Interactive Performance

Ideas can be captured by writing, typing, or recording. Each medium has its strengths and weaknesses. There may be times when you want to move information from one medium to another. When you do, there’s an app for that.

Speech t o text

When you’re developing a character or writing a script, sometimes it helps to capture ideas at the speed of thought. Writing by hand or typing on a keyboard is too slow. You need a way to follow and capture your impulses. This is where a transcription app comes in handy. It allows you to speak freely while the software transcribes what you say. When you’re done, you have a written transcript of everything you said. Then you can edit the transcript, keeping the ideas that are useful and discarding the rest.

There are many speech-to-text transcription apps out there. Here are some of the best free options.

Google Docs (web) – Using a Chrome browser, open a Google doc. In the Tools menu, click Voice typing. Click on the microphone button that appears and it will begin transcribing your speech into text. If you stop speaking for a while, it will stop transcribing, so keep an eye on that.

Speechnotes.co (web, Android) – Use the Android app or go to the website using a Chrome browser. You don’t need to create an account. Click the microphone button and start talking. Copy and paste the results to wherever you want to keep them.

Otter.ai (web, Android, iOS) – You’ll need to create a free account, but you get 600 minutes of free speech-to-text transcription per month. The software has the additional benefit of doing automatic punctuation and capitalization for you.

Mobile speech recognition (Android, iOS) – Most mobile devices have an option for speech-to-text. Look for the microphone button on the on-screen keyboard. On Android devices, the button is on the right side of the text suggestion bar above the keyboard. On iOS devices, the button is to the left of the spacebar at the bottom of the keyboard. Tap the microphone button to start transcribing into the note-taking app of your choice.

Here are some tips when doing speech-to-text transcription:

• While speaking, close your eyes or look away from the screen. Watching words appear can put you in your head.
• If the accuracy of transcription is poor, use a microphone and speak in a quiet environment.
• Don’t let verbal punctuation get in the way of your flow. You can always go back and clean up the transcript later.

Analytic thought is useful when organizing and refining ideas, but when you need to get raw thoughts out of the subconscious, use a speech-to-text transcription app.

Handwriting to digital

A handwritten training journal is useful because the words you write capture ideas, while your penmanship captures how you feel. The position of your notes on a physical page also makes information easier to recall. However, if you need to search a large amount of text, it’s easier to do that digitally. You can have the best of both worlds by keeping handwritten notes and digitizing the important information. Here are ways to convert handwritten notes into digital text.

Google docs – Scan and convert your journal pages to a pdf file. (Search for “scan to pdf” in your app store.) Upload the pdf file to Google Drive. Right click the file and select “Open with Google Docs.” A document is created with your handwritten notes converted to text.

Handwriting to text – Search for “handwriting to text” in your app store. There are a variety of programs for iOS and Android that convert handwritten notes into digital text.

Whenever you find yourself wishing there was a different way to capture, store, or deliver information, stop wishing and do a search. There’s probably an app for that.

Note: This information is included in Training tips for inter-actors, which can be downloaded at interactiveplaylab.com/101-extras/.