# How to transcribe a meeting, an interview, or a lecture into text

Three ways to turn a recording into text, how to record so the transcript comes out clean, and what to check before anyone relies on it.

Published 2026-10-11. Paxa Labs.

A recording is easy to make and hard to use. Nobody can search it, skim it, or quote from it without playing it back. Transcription turns the recording into text, and the text is what gets read, filed, and searched.

The work used to belong to a typist with headphones. Speech to text software now writes the first draft, and a person checks it. The job has three parts, which are recording well, choosing the right settings, and reviewing the names and numbers.

## Three ways to get a transcript

| Way | What it takes | Suits |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Type it yourself | Several times the length of the recording, since you pause and replay as you type | A short clip, or a recording nobody else may hear |
| Hire a transcriber | A quote based on the length of the recording, and a turnaround counted in days | Legal or sensitive work that needs a named person to stand behind the text |
| Speech to text software | An upload and a review pass | Meetings, interviews, lectures, and anything recorded every week |

The three combine well. Software writes the draft and a person who was in the room corrects it, which is far quicker than typing from a blank page.

## Record so the transcript comes out clean

Most transcript errors start in the room. A recording that a person strains to follow is one that software will struggle with too.

- Put the phone or recorder near the speakers. In a meeting room, the middle of the table beats the end by the projector.
- Keep away from the air conditioner and the fan. A steady hum covers the quiet ends of words.
- Ask people to speak one at a time. Two voices at once come out as one muddled line.
- Say names and figures clearly, and repeat the ones that matter. A budget read out twice gets checked twice.
- Save in a common format. MP3, WAV, FLAC, OGG, M4A, AAC, WEBM files all work.
- Split a long session at the breaks. One file can run up to 60 minutes and 25 MB.

## From file to text, step by step

1. Upload the recording: Open [the Transcribe tool](https://paxalabs.com/app/transcribe) and drop the file in, or record straight from the microphone. The cost appears before you start.
2. Choose how numbers are written: Pick Written to get digits, units, and the repetition mark, which is what minutes and reports want. Pick Spoken to keep every number in words, exactly as it was said.
3. Choose the style: Verbatim keeps every filler and false start, which a research interview or a legal record needs. Clean drops them and reads more easily, and it follows the recording less exactly.
4. Add your vocabulary: List the names, products, and jargon the recording contains, up to 50 terms. They come back spelled the way you wrote them.
5. Turn on speakers for a short recording: On a recording under 9 minutes, the transcript can come back as numbered turns, one per speaker. Nobody is identified by name.
6. Transcribe and copy: Run it, read the result beside the audio, and copy the text or download a subtitle file.

> Paxa STT Lite is a research preview. Its transcripts and its options may change between releases.

## What each kind of recording needs

| Recording | Settings | Then |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Meeting | Written numbers, Clean style, and every attendee's name in the vocabulary | Draft the minutes from the text, with decisions and owners at the top. See [meetings](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/meetings). |
| Interview | Verbatim style, with word timestamps on | Quote exactly, and jump back to the second a quote was said. See [interviews](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/interviews). |
| Lecture or training | Clean style, with subtitles as SRT or VTT | Post the transcript as notes and the subtitle file with the video. See [lectures](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/lectures) and [captions](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/captions). |
| Voice note | Written numbers | Paste the text where the note was heading. See [voice notes](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/voice-notes). |

## What Thai recordings do differently

Thai speech sets a transcriber three problems that English does not.

- English arrives mid-sentence. A Thai speaker names a product or a technical term in English and carries on in Thai. A good transcript keeps each word in the script it was spoken in, and [the code-switching guide](https://paxalabs.com/guides/transcribing-thai-english-code-switching) shows what that does for search.
- Numbers are said in words. Whether the transcript writes the words or the digits is a setting, and [the numbers guide](https://paxalabs.com/guides/thai-transcript-numbers-spoken-or-written) covers which reader wants which.
- Words are written without spaces. A timestamp has to cover a whole word, and a subtitle line has to break between words.

## Check the transcript before anyone relies on it

A transcript is a draft until someone has read it against the audio. A full replay is rarely needed. Check the places where one wrong word changes the meaning.

- Names of people, companies, and products.
- Every figure, including amounts, dates, percentages, and phone numbers.
- Negations. One dropped word turns a refusal into an agreement.
- Who said what, when the transcript has speaker turns.
- Any passage where people talked over each other.

Word timestamps make the check quick. Find the doubtful word, play that second of the recording, and correct it. To compare two services, run the same three recordings of your own through both. [The accuracy guide](https://paxalabs.com/guides/measuring-thai-transcription-accuracy) explains how to score the result.

## What it costs

Transcription is priced by the length of the recording. Paxa STT Lite costs 8.33 credits per minute of audio. An hour is 500 credits, or $0.50.

| Recording | Length | Credits | Cost |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Voice note | 10 minutes | 83.34 | $0.08 |
| Meeting | 45 minutes | 375 | $0.38 |
| Lecture | 60 minutes | 500 | $0.50 |

A new account's 100 free credits cover about 12 minutes of audio, with no card. [The pricing page](https://paxalabs.com/pricing) lists the plans.

## When the text has to appear live

A recording is transcribed after the fact. Live captions for a talk, or a voice agent that has to answer a caller, need the text while the person is still speaking. Paxa STT Lite Realtime does that over one connection, at 12.5 credits per minute of audio received. [The live transcription page](https://paxalabs.com/use-cases/live-transcription) covers it.

## Common questions

### Can I transcribe a video file?

The Transcribe tool takes audio. Export the sound from the video as an M4A or MP3 file in your editor and upload that. The subtitle file that comes back lines up with the original video, because the timing is the same.

### Does it work for languages other than Thai?

It is built for Thai first, and other languages are transcribed as they are spoken. A Thai sentence that switches into English keeps both scripts in one line.

## Before you upload a recording

Tell the people in the room that the meeting is being recorded and that a service will transcribe it. Before you upload anything confidential, read how the service handles what you send. Ours is set out in [the Privacy Policy](https://paxalabs.com/privacy) and [the Terms](https://paxalabs.com/terms).

## Next steps

- Upload a recording to [the Transcribe tool](https://paxalabs.com/app/transcribe) with the free credits.
- See a Thai recording transcribed word by word on [the transcription page](https://paxalabs.com/transcribe).
- Read [how to choose a Thai speech to text engine](https://paxalabs.com/guides/choosing-a-thai-speech-to-text-engine) before you commit to one.