Open and close the panel
You can open the panel in several ways.
- Press Transcript at the top right of the note.
- Choose Transcript in the View menu, or press Command-2. Choose Note (Command-1) to close it.
- Press a time chip on a line of the note. The panel opens at that moment. See Notes, quotes and time chips.
- Press a time in an answer from Ask. See Ask your meetings.
To close the panel, press the x in its header, press Transcript again, or press Escape. If the meeting has a transcript but no written note yet, the panel opens by itself.
The panel is 400 points wide. When your window is wide enough, the note and the panel sit side by side and the note narrows. In a narrower window, the panel slides over the note.
The transcript panel on the right of a note. The search box is at the top.
Read the conversation
The transcript reads like a chat.
- Me is your microphone. It shows as a soft grey bubble on the right. It carries no name.
- Them is everyone on the other side of an online call. It shows as plain text on the left, with the name above the first bubble of a group. KeptNote does not tell the people on the other side apart, so all of them are Them.
- Room is a meeting in the room. The one microphone hears everyone, so there is one speaker, and it sits on the left.
Short pieces from one speaker are joined in one bubble. A new group starts when the speaker changes, or after a pause of a minute. A small time, such as 02:13, shows between bubbles, and again when more than 30 seconds pass. Point at a bubble to see who spoke and when. You can select text and copy it.
If you gave your name in Settings, on the Profile tab, your first name shows in the tooltip of your own bubbles in place of Me.
Search the transcript
Click Search transcript at the top of the panel and type.
KeptNote marks every match. A count shows beside the box, for example 1 of 5, or No matches.
Press Return for the next match. Press Shift-Return for the one before. The search wraps around at the ends.
Press Escape to clear the box.
The search ignores capital letters. It does not ignore accents, so a word with an accent does not match the same word without one. It looks for the letters you type, in any part of a word. The search is cleared when you open another meeting.
To search every meeting at once, press Command-K. See Folders and Mac folder links.
Copy the transcript
Press the copy icon next to the search box. Its tooltip reads Copy transcript. KeptNote copies the whole transcript as plain text, one line for each turn, in this form: [hh:mm:ss] Speaker: text. A message says Copied transcript. You can also choose Copy transcript in the Share menu.
The live transcript while you record
During a recording, press Transcript in the recording bar to open the same panel with the words as they are said. They appear a few seconds late. They show as bubbles, like the finished transcript. On a call, your microphone is Me and the other side is Them.
- It keeps every word. A long meeting does not lose its early lines. If the speech recognizer on your Mac stops after a pause or an error, KeptNote starts it again by itself and the lines you already have stay.
- The panel follows the newest line. Scroll up to read earlier ones. A button, Jump to latest, takes you back to the end.
- The card that opens from the edge tab shows the newest lines too. See The menu bar and the recording capsule.
- If macOS has not given KeptNote permission for speech recognition, the panel says so. Your recording is not affected.
The live transcript is a preview. It runs on your Mac and always uses US English. Its words never leave your Mac. After you stop, KeptNote builds the real transcript from the audio, in the language you set. The real one is the one you search, copy and ask about.
When there is no transcript
- Transcript pending. The meeting has no transcript yet. Transcribe it, and it appears.
- Transcript removed. You chose to delete transcripts after a set time. The note stays. See What stays on your Mac.
- No transcript. The meeting was imported with its note only.
Language
The panel has no language control. KeptNote transcribes in the language you set in Settings, on the Transcription tab, under Language. See Transcription engines, models and languages.