oTranscribe

oTranscribe is a free web app designed to take the pain out of transcribing recorded interviews.

• Pause (ESC), rewind (F1) and fast-forward (F2) without taking your hands off the keyboard
• Adjust playback speed with a slider or using F3/F4
• Your transcript is automatically saved to the browser's localStorage every second
• Rich text support using contentEditable
• YouTube and video file support

... and more!

Support this tool

oTranscribe was built by Elliot Bentley and is hosted and maintained by MuckRock Foundation. Your donations help us keep oTranscribe up and running. Consider making a donation today!

Download a copy

Although a web version is available, you can install oTranscribe anywhere by following these steps:

1. Download the current ZIP archive.
2. Compile the CSS and JS with Webpack (see below for more detailed instructions).
3. Upload the files in the newly-generated dist folder to a server of your choice.

Please note that, in Chrome, local copies oTranscribe may not run correctly due to the browser's privacy settings.

Compiling the CSS and JavaScript

The src folder in this repository only includes the "raw" JavaScript and CSS. To compile the production-ready files:

• Install Node.js and NPM. Requires Node v24+ and npm v10+. Verified to work on npm == 11.12.1 & node == v24.14.1
• Run npm install to install dependencies
• Run npm run build to compile the dist folder.

Running oTranscribe

• Run npm run serve to serve the production build locally (includes Workbox service worker for offline caching support)
• Run npm run dev if you are looking to run the dev server locally with watch-for-changes enabled. This will start a local dev server at http://localhost:8080/ and will update as you make changes.

Note: The Workbox service worker is only included in production builds, thus offline caching support isn't enabled in the dev server.

OTR file format

oTranscribe has its own file format (.otr), which is just a JSON file with the following parameters:

• text: The raw HTML of the transcript
• media: If available, the name of the last media used
• media-source: If available, a link to the last media used
• media-time: If available, the playtime of the last media used

Translations

Translations have been provided by the following talented and generous volunteers:

• Catalan: Joan Montané and Jon Sindreu.
• Chinese: baiqj, Cindy Ng, Andy Pan, Cp0204 and Robin Kwong
• Danish: Christian Bruun.
• Dutch: Patrick Mackaaij and Marjolein Quist.
• Filipino: Patricia Albano.
• French: Olivier Aubert, @goofy-bz and Dr J Rogel-Salazar.
• German: Dr J Rogel-Salazar and Lisa Bernhardt.
• Indonesian: Joy Tikoalu.
• Italian: Dr J Rogel-Salazar, Edoardo Putti and Federico Lasta.
• Japanese: harupong.
• Norwegian: Hallvar Hauge Johnsen
• Polish: Emil Maruszczak and Piotr Tarasewicz.
• Portuguese: enVide neFelibata.
• Brazilian Portuguese: Leonardo Barichello and Carlos Eduardo Pinheiro Rocha.
• Romanian: Iain Apreotesei and Catalina Albeanu
• Russian: Pavel Osminin
• Spanish: Cristian Duque, Dr J Rogel-Salazar and Adrián Blanco.
• Swedish: c3ons.
• Turkish: Mehmet S. DERİNDERE.
• Ukrainian: Myroslav Opyr
• Vietnamese: Trần Ngọc Quân
• Greek: Konstantinos Alexiou

More about translating oTranscribe on our wiki.