Microsoft has just announced the arrival of a new feature within Office: a transcription tool. While it was already possible to dictate sentences in Word, the new feature supports audio files and automatically converts them to text. What to save a lot of time. Students, journalists or anyone else who enjoys audio recordings should certainly be delighted with this novelty.
Right now, the new feature is pretty limited, but it still looks very promising. It is in fact only available on the online version of Word and is unfortunately not free since, to use it, you will need a Microsoft 365 subscription. In addition, the use of this function is for the 'moment still limited, 5 hours of audio per month.
The process remains fairly straightforward. Simply select the "Dictate" tool from the horizontal menu and select the "Transcribe" option. You can then select and open an audio file in .mp3, .mp4, .wav or .m4a format of a maximum of 200 MB. The word processing software will then convert the file into a text version. A conversion that will be done in portions or according to the different interlocutors for more clarity.
A feature with a bright future
This new feature should really save its users time, but do not expect miracles. It is far from perfect since depending on the audio quality, the accent of the people, it could make mistakes. It will therefore be necessary to go over it again to ensure the consistency of the text.
One can easily imagine that in the coming months or years, the functionality will be improved. It could also be offered on the offline version of Word and without monthly usage limits. We can also imagine that the feature is compatible with more languages since, for the moment, it only works with English.
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