OT: Recording audio to be later transcribed to text for printing

[Henro]

I know this is a totally off the wall question.

But I have had a rather out of the ordinary life experience during my lifetime. Just overall, not one significant experience.

I would like to record my life experience using my new iPhone 13, for my grand kids, and perhaps maybe printing it out later for posterity. I do wish I had something like this available from my Great Grandparents!

I also have a new iPad pro...

So how do I accomplish this?

I am willing to pay for an APP that does this and will be around for a while. Just do not know what to do...

Always amazed at the wealth of knowledge held by members here...hope you can advise me...

Edit: I have four grand kids. I first thought I would just get them together and tell my story, maybe recording it. But I think getting them together at different time will be cumbersome, and the net result will be that nothing happens...and I will fade away, and they may always wonder about their grandpap...

2nd edit: By out of the ordinary, I mean I rode my old BMW from Spain to Thailand over 14 months in 1969 and 1970. Things like that...only recently heard that was referred to as the Hippy trail...never was a hippy though...my weakness I guess...LOL

3rd edit: What I really want is a way to record what I say, and later transcribe it into printed form, and at the same time saving the audio recordings for later use. I have no clue if this is possible or available even if paying for such a service. Not trying to cheap out...just trying to find something that will work for me. I am willing to pay...

[MrWhoopee]

Speech to text is readily available, MS Word can do it, along with Dragon Naturally Speaking. I'm sure there are others. You might have to be running a speech to text app and voice recorder simultaneously to get what you want. Another option might be a voice recording played back to speech to text app. The voice recording is easy, speech to text gets a little more tedious as words are frequently misinterpreted and need to be corrected. If you want some interesting free-form verse, try singing to a speech to text app.

I heartily approve of your plan, I have a short voice recording of my maternal grandmother describing her early life, including looking out the window of their 5th floor apartment during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Just hearing her voice makes me tear up.

[Rich Carlstedt]

Henro
I know from where you are talking, and my daughter has asked me for the same thing.
I am also writing a book about steam engines at the same time . I am not a "I Phone/Apple" guy so have no response to that part of your query.
I bought an Olympus VN-541PC voice recorder for about $50 USA and record my comments when i go for long walks as there are no interruptions .
https://www.getolympus.com/us/en/vn-541pc.html
It works really well and is simple to us ( especially to me ! ) . You can save your comments to a file in the PC if you wish a permanent record.

I also got Dragon Naturally Speaking ( DNS) - a PC program that converts speech to text for you for about 100 dollars as I recall .

https://www.dragon-naturally-speaking.com/

There are newer versions than what I got and do not know what advantage they may have ( I use # 11)
This software takes some time to learn the way you speak , and writing a book with engine part name references makes it a bit tougher I think, but it works
I am not familiar with WIN 10 or 11, but heard that there is a recorder similar to DNS in the software.

I recommend the Olympus unit highly

Rich

Edit addition.
i have not tried to direct transfer the recorded words into the DNS Program..Not sure if that could be done ??
I have to repeat my recorded text to the PC to turn it into text. ( so I listen to replay on earphones and talk to the PC )

[gellfex]

It's a great idea, but why not take it the step further and record yourself on video? I did this with my 86 year old mom just before Covid hit, videoing her for several hours recalling all she could of her family and her early life. Sadly, by the time we got to a 2nd session her memory had started to fail, and it was not nearly as great. If you choose to still do the transcription, you can, but at least the raw video footage will still be there even if you don't want to edit it. It's easy to do with simple phone holder and a tripod or a homemade equivalent. You can even get a cheap handheld remote to start and stop recording. I also recommend getting a lapel mike, they're inexpensive and greatly improve the audio.

[Henro]

Speech to text is readily available, MS Word can do it, along with Dragon Naturally Speaking. I'm sure there are others. You might have to be running a speech to text app and voice recorder simultaneously to get what you want. Another option might be a voice recording played back to speech to text app. The voice recording is easy, speech to text gets a little more tedious as words are frequently misinterpreted and need to be corrected. If you want some interesting free-form verse, try singing to a speech to text app.

I heartily approve of your plan, I have a short voice recording of my maternal grandmother describing her early life, including looking out the window of their 5th floor apartment during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Just hearing her voice makes me tear up.

Thank you for your response.

I think I need to get my head on better for what I think I would like to have happen.

I do not have MS word or Dragon on my apple devices.

Simple guy...just want to have an APP that records and gives me the option to print out the recording, regardless of the errors..

Frankly I may be a moron, but can't imagine why Apple would not have this simple option available as a matter of course. Maybe they do and I am just not able to find it. Would not be the first time to miss something simple.

For convenience, would like to use my new iPad actually, but the iPhone 13 would work well to I assume....I have a few PC's available, but they will not work really...a matter of convenience...I like doing things like this from the comfort of my reclining chair.

[alanganes]

I know that there are text-to-speech programs and apps as a few others have mentioned. There are also actual transcription services, where an actual human listens to your recording and types it out into a text file.These are still used in place of speech recognition based services in some applications where accuracy is very important, think medical and legal stuff and the like. I knew a guy that had a booming business doing this for hospitals and doctors long before there were computers that could do it. No idea what they cost, but may be worth it. This is one that popped up in a quick google search, just as an example:
https://www.newenglandtranscripts.com/services

There are also a number of on-line services that do this via software for a fee per minute. again,, just google Transcription service and you will find lots of them. I don't have any recommendations, just tossing out some (maybe obvious) thoughts.

And I agree with the others who say that this is a great idea. Your grandkids will treasure this.

Edited to add:
There is also this, no idea how well it works but seems to be included with your apple device:

https://www.lifewire.com/use-ipad-vo...tation-4103815

[Henro]

It's a great idea, but why not take it the step further and record yourself on video? I did this with my 86 year old mom just before Covid hit, videoing her for several hours recalling all she could of her family and her early life. Sadly, by the time we got to a 2nd session her memory had started to fail, and it was not nearly as great. If you choose to still do the transcription, you can, but at least the raw video footage will still be there even if you don't want to edit it. It's easy to do with simple phone holder and a tripod or a homemade equivalent. You can even get a cheap handheld remote to start and stop recording. I also recommend getting a lapel mike, they're inexpensive and greatly improve the audio.

That is a great idea. Something to consider in addition to what I want to do.

I just kind of wish I had some insight to what my great, great grand parents were about. I realize that even print on paper fades... no doubt that a video would be priceless for those that follow.

At this point I am willing to settle for a audio recording and printed transcript if that can be attained.

The Video would be a bonus without question.

[Paul Alciatore]

After reading the above, it occurs to me that our posts here and on other internet boards and sites also create a record of our thoughts and activities. Perhaps compiling a list of such sites may be another idea.

[Oldguy]

I don't own any Apple products, but this is an interesting question we should all be thinking about. It seems that this may be built into the iPad and there are apps available in the app store for the iPhone.
Here's a link to a quick search I made:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=spe...=v115-1&ia=web

Glenn

[gellfex]

I just kind of wish I had some insight to what my great, great grand parents were about.

Same here. All I know is about 2 of my great grandads, one was the village tinsmith in Ukraine, the other was a Polish tailor who emigrated to Brooklyn. My grandparent's generation didn't think their stories and the stories of their families were important. One grandad was a Doughboy and was gassed in the trenches of France, the other escaped from Stalinist Ukraine, somehow made his way to Brazil and bought the identity of a dead man who had gotten a visa. Never heard about either from them even though the latter survived till I was in my early 20s. Relevant to our forum, he had metalworking skills that allowed him to earn money wherever he went, and be relatively middle class in the US during the Great Depression.

Regarding the transcription, I found it a frustrating problem on the same project too. Google will live transcribe, but not let you upload an audio file. I'm sure there's a way to hack that other than playing a recording into a mike, but I didn't pursue it that far. I was happy to have the video of Mom safe in the cloud.

[Jon Heron]

My daughter used this on my phone to record an interview with my grandma, I could not believe how good of a job it did in transcribing the audio and separating the different voices on the recording...
Cheers,
Jon
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....aisense.otter

[MrWhoopee]

Speech to text is built into an iPhone and iPad
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208343

and so is sound recorder
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206775


Since you have two Apple devices, enable speech to text on one and sound recorder on the other. Off you go. Just be sure to get your thoughts organized before you start. Text is easy to edit, voice recordings much less so.

[mickeyf]

I have an elderly Samsung phone, my wife has an iPhone. I dictate text messages to mine with 90% plus accuracy. My wife's newish iPhone does such a poor job that she tediously types in messages. Your mileage may vary. In any case expect to have to do some editing for auto-corrupt if you take this route.

I do think the video is a much better idea, the grand-kids will hear your very own voice, see their very on G'pa telling them the story. (I should do this too!)

[gellfex]

I do think the video is a much better idea, the grand-kids will hear your very own voice, see their very on G'pa telling them the story. (I should do this too!)

And then he should post it for us, if the stories are that interesting we want to hear!

[JRouche]

I know this is a totally off the wall question.OT: Recording audio to be later transcribed to text for printing

I have use Dragon products since the 90s. I like the product. And I think its freebie.

I am looking for a translator that does photos of kanji writing to text. JR