How to Transcribe a Lecture

Educators and students use speech-to-text tools to create readable transcripts of academic presentations. A transcript makes it simple to search for specific terms or review dense material without rewatching the entire recording.

Converting audio to text also provides a valuable accessibility resource for individuals who rely on written formats or prefer reading to listening.

If you instead want to create spoken narration from lesson notes or educational scripts rather than converting recorded lectures into text, see our text-to-speech for e-learning guide.

Before you can transcribe audio with Konthora, you must ensure your file meets the platform limits. Konthora currently accepts media up to 100 MB and up to 10 minutes in duration.

Longer lectures must be manually divided into shorter files before upload. We support audio inputs (MP3, WAV, M4A, AAC) as well as video inputs (MP4, WebM, MOV) commonly used for recorded presentations.

Note that audio transcription accuracy is highly dependent on the quality of the recording. Audio captured close to the speaker will result in a much cleaner transcript than audio recorded from the back of a large hall.

Konthora provides three timestamp modes: sentence, paragraph, and word-level.

When reviewing a lecture, paragraph mode is often the best choice for reading long sections of speech. Sentence mode offers precise timecode references when you need to match a statement to a specific slide or visual aid. Word-level timestamps provide exact alignment but are generally unnecessary unless you are editing the video file.

After the text is generated, select an export format that fits your workflow.

If you want to read the transcript as a document, TXT is the most convenient option. If you plan to add closed captions to a recorded video lecture, export as SRT or VTT. A JSON export is available for programmatic access to the transcript and timestamps.