Transcribing Audio with Word Online and a Screen Reader

One of the handy but not so obvious features of a Microsoft 365 subscription in my opinion, is the ability to transcribe 300 minutes of audio a month using the online version of Word. I’ve been using this on and off for many months but have started making regular use of it for some personal projects of late. I also noticed a note when uploading audio recently, that the 300 minute restriction appears to be removed. A note in the transcription area said you can now upload unlimited audio. It did also say this may change in the future but this change makes the audio transcription functionality even more compelling to me.

Office has a help article on using this experience. Here are some notes on using this experience with a screen reader in particular that go a bit further than the help article.

Creating a Document

First off, you are going to want to create a new Word document using the online version of Word. I do this by navigating to http://word.office.com and choosing the option to create a new document. Since Word online works best with any screen reader virtual mode off, I typically turn off the JAWS VPC, Narrator Scan Mode or NVDA Browse mode before navigating to the site.

Assuming you are signed into your Microsoft 365 account, focus should land on the Create a New Blank Document link. Simply activate that link and a new document is created and focus is moved to the editing area.

Transcribing Audio

With focus in the document area, you are going to want to access the Dictation option on the Ribbon and specifically the Transcription option. There are different ways to navigate but what I do is:

1. Press CTRL+Shift+F6 once to access the ribbon. You should be on the Home option. If on a Mac replace CTRL with CMD.
2. Press Tab once to access the options on the Home ribbon.
3. To move to different groups of controls here you can use CTRL+Left and Right arrows. Again, replace CTRL with CMD if on a Mac. I have found it faster to use CTRL+Left arrow from here until I reach the group that announces as Voice with focus on a Dictate button.
4. Press alt+Down Arrow to access the choices here. Replace Alt with Option if on a Mac.
5. Arrow down to Transcribe and press Enter.
6. A new pane will open and focus should go to it. If for some reason it does not, again use CTRL+F6 and CTRL+Shift+F6 to locate the Transcribe Pane.
7. Tab to the Upload audio button and activate it.
8. You will get the standard File Open dialog for the operating system you are using. Locate the audio file you want to transcribe and upload the audio.
9. You will get messages about the audio uploading and being transcribed. I have found it fastest to toggle on the virtual mode for a screen reader and read this text. You should find the text a couple lines above a cancel button when reading in this fashion. Remember to turn back off any virtual mode when done reading. Transcription is quite fast in my experience. It is usually done in less than three minutes for both uploading and transcribing an hour’s worth of audio for me.
10. When the transcription is finished, you will have some new elements in this pane. They will include:
    
    1. A list of all the recognized speech you can arrow up and down to review/edit. Tab from an entry in this list for an edit button if you want to make an adjustment to the transcription.
    2. Note that if you choose Edit, a new dialog opens with the section of text in an edit box and the speaker identification in a second edit area. You can adjust the speaker name and there is an option to do it for the entire document as well.
    3. After you arrow to any transcript section, there is also a tab stop to that specific segment. Press enter on this to start audio playing at that point.
    4. Controls for adding sections or all the text to the document.
    5. Audio controls for playing the audio you transcribed.
11. Use the Add to Document button. You will have choices for Text, text, text with speaker identification, text with timestamps or text with both speakers and timestamps. Use up and down arrow to move through choices and Press enter on the item you want.
12. Focus will likely stay on the Add to Document button. Use CTRL+Shift+F6 to move back to the document area. You will be at the end of any inserted text.
    

At this point you can make any adjustments to the text you want. For minor edits, I will use either the edit transcription functionality in the Transcribe Pane or Word Online. For extensive edits, I tend to open the document in the full desktop version of Word. For example, a global search and replace can change all references of Speaker 1 to a specific name.

By default the document, is saved in the root of your OneDrive folder and can be edited online or with the desktop version of Word. Speech to text transcription still requires some editing but this is another helpful tool to use from my experience.