YouTube Transcript Generator

v1.0

While YouTube's machine-generated captioning service has improved over the years, there are still deficiencies that need to be addressed so that content is accurately communicated to people who depend on captions such as people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

If you create and post videos to YouTube, you have to ability to edit captions directly in YouTube.

If you are sharing a YouTube video that you do not own, you do not have the ability to edit the captions. Therefore, TLC created this tool so that you could generate a transcript quickly and easily, make the proper edits, and provide it to your students within your course to foster an equitable learning environment.

Step 1: Copy the YouTube Video's URL

Step 2: Generate the Microsoft Word File

Paste the YouTube video's URL in the following form to generate a Microsoft Word (.docx) file containing the text of the video's automated captioning.

Step 3: Correct Transcription Innaccuracies

Review the generated transcript and address the following items:

  1. Punctuation. YouTube adds very little punctuation to its captioning, so proper sentence endings, commas, and other marks should be added where appropriate.
  2. Capitalization. YouTube often does not capitalize the first word in a sentence or many proper nouns in its captions. Correcting this should help with readability and comprehension.
  3. Misinterpreted words. YouTube may misinterpret a word for various reasons (background noise, multi-syllable words, accents, etc). The transcript should be reviewed thoroughly to find and correct these errors.

Step 4: Follow the W3C WAI Guidelines on Formatting a Transcript

Review the "What to Transcribe" section of "Transcribing Audio to Text" by the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and adjust your transcript where appropriate. The article addresses various scenarios such as the following:

  • There are multiple speakers
  • The speaker says "um", "ah", and repeated phrases
  • There is speech that is not relevant to the course content
  • There is speech that is unintelligible
  • There is bleeped audio

Step 5: Upload the Transcript to your D2L Course Shell Alongside the YouTube Video

If you have any questions, please contact your assigned Instructional Designer. For technical support, contact the Teaching & Learning Center's support line at 610-436-3373 or TLC@wcupa.edu.