Setting Up Express Scribe
Now that you have your audio loaded into Express Scribe, it’s time to learn how to use this program. We’ll go through the basic controls, hotkeys, and settings. Don’t worry, this is not advanced at all and you should catch on easily.
One of the first things you’ll notice when you open Express Scribe are the large buttons on the bottom for Play, Stop, Rewind to the beginning, Rewind a short section, Fast forward a short section, and Fast-forward to the end.
To the top of the control buttons is a slider that shows you how far you are into the audio file. You can also see the exact time you’re at, to the right of the slider. This green bar shows you the volume within Express Scribe.
If a file is too loud or soft, you can adjust the volume within Express Scribe. This bar down here shows you the audio speed. You can speed it up or slow it down, depending on how fast you want to hear the audio. This part of the home screen shows you the active audio files within Express Scribe.
I have mine set up to show the Dictation Name, the Date, the Duration, or length of the file, and then any Notes. If you right-click on any of these names, it shows you other options that you can check to show up on the screen.
When you have finished a file, you can mark it as Done or delete it. If you mark it as done, it is still saved within Express Scribe, but is not shown on your active screen. You can click on the Recover button to see the files that are marked as Done and select which ones you want to activate again.
When you delete a file, it’s deleted from Express Scribe, but if you have it saved elsewhere in your computer, then you can reload it into Express Scribe if needed. You can also right-click on a file to bring these options up. Scribe Mini is one of my favorite features of Express Scribe.
When you click on it, it’ll turn the screen smaller, so that you can still see it as you’re typing.
Scribe Mini
Use Scribe Mini to easily access the controls while you’re typing.
- Go to View and click Float Above Other Windows.
- Click Scribe Mini or hit Ctrl+M.
You then just click the button in the bottom right corner to return it to its original size. You can also resize the screen using the bottom arrows and resize the notes area if you’re adding notes. We’ll quickly go into the File Menu, although this is an area I rarely use, as almost all of the commands can be accessed by right-clicking on the audio file.
Here, you can see that you can Load the audio file, mark the file as Done, Delete the audio, and more. In the Control Menu, you can see the list of current hotkeys. A hotkey in Express Scribe is a keyboard button that you can use to control the audio or other parts of Express Scribe without using your mouse.
Access Our Hotkeys Guide: Download
This helps keep your hands on the keyboard, which lets you type faster. You can see the basic commands here, and I have also created a printable so that you have easy reference to the hotkeys. There are two types of hotkeys in Express Scribe. The first is known as system-wide hotkeys. These are key combinations that will control part of Express Scribe, even if you’re working in another program such as Microsoft Word.
These hotkeys override any other shortcut that you have for other programs. So, for example, normally if you’re working with Word and you press F7, that brings up the Spelling tab. But if Express Scribe is opened and you push F7, even within Word, then that rewinds the audio. In addition to the hotkeys that are default to the program, you can also create your own hotkeys.
The second type of hotkeys are shortcuts within Express Scribe that only work when the Express Scribe window is open and active, such as setting bookmarks, controlling the Scribe Mini view, and more. In the View Menu, you can control which Main Toolbar Buttons are shown, as well as which Small Toolbar Buttons are shown.
You can even choose to hide them. You can also choose how the video is shown, which is a feature in The Express Scribe Pro version. I have mine set to When available, which only shows a movie screen on movie files and not regular audio files.
The Show Notes options let you type in notes for each audio file. This is helpful if you’re tracking speakers, and you can write out some of the attributes of the speakers you hear. I also use it for other small notes, such as how often I need to timestamp this file or other special requests for the file.
You could also show something called the Channels window. This is something I usually don’t show, but it can be handy if you have a stereo file that has more than one speaker because you can adjust the levels of each channel. So, this is an option to play around with if perhaps one speaker is louder than another.
One option that I always make sure is checked is the Float Above Other Windows option. This makes it so that Express Scribe still shows up, even if you’re working in another program. This is especially helpful when you’re typing in Word and you have it in the Scribe Mini view because you can see how far you are into the file, even though you’re working in Word. The Bookmark setting is helpful, but it’s mostly used for more advanced transcription work. I use it to bookmark speakers’ voices when I’m tracking more than three speakers in a file.
There is a lot you can customize in the Options Menu. I’m only going to go over some of the most basic settings. The Default slow playback speed sets the default speed for the Slow Playback button. I have mine set at 50. This can be helpful to listen to hard to hear words in slow motion to see if you can catch what is being said.
I have set my Default fast playback speed to 200. This is the speed at which I proof to audio. I started proofing to audio at a slower speed of 150% when I started out. The Auto backstep on stop is a handy feature that causes your audio to jump backward after you have stopped. It’s set up in milliseconds. I have mine set up to 2,500 milliseconds, which is 2.5 seconds. So, if I pause my audio and then start back up, my audio will jump back 2.5 seconds from where I paused it. This lets me hear what I just typed and jump right back in. If I don’t use this feature, it’s hard for me to know exactly where I left off, and I usually end up rewinding a few seconds anyway.
Play around with the length of milliseconds to find what works best for you. The last two Menus are Tools and Help. The option in the Tools Menu is a Word/Line Counter. This only works if you copy and paste your document from Word into Express Scribe. It can be helpful if you are doing legal transcription or getting paid per line or word.
Most paid text expander programs also do this within the Word file you’re using, and so this is a feature that I don’t normally use. And then the Help Menu simply shows you the Help Contents, how to contact Express Scribe and other products that NCH puts out. So, this was just a quick overview of Express Scribe. Now, you’re ready to start using it on your files