EVERNOTE AND OTHER FREE TRANSCRIPTION HELPS FOR DOCUMENTS AND AUDIO

©Copyright 2012 by Donald R. Snow
Sections of the Class Notes This page was last updated 2012-05-10.
Return to the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page.
    WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION

  1. Instructors are Donald R. and Diane M. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu and dmsnow34@gmail.com ) of Provo, Utah and St. George, Utah.
  2. These notes with the active Internet links are posted on http://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html .  You can put an icon on your desktop to go to it immediately.
  3. Tip: holding down the Control Key while clicking on a link opens the link in a new window, so you don't lose your place where you were.
  4. Announcements
    1. Register for an LDS account -- go to  https://apps.lds.org/sign-in/go/login.jsf -- Same user name and password can be used at FS, nFS, FS Indexing, and ward and stake websites at http://www.lds.org .
    2. Use your LDS account to generate a helpful 9-Generation Pedigree Fan Chart of your FS data -- http://www.createfan.com/ -- Can also generate fan charts for anyone in FS, if you know their PID (their FS Personal Identifier number), by going to http://www.treeseek.com .
    3. Sign up for the new interface FamilySearch Family Tree
      1. Go to  https://familysearch.org/invite/familytree_tab  and register there with your LDS account. This is in addition to registering for an LDS Account and you only have to do this once.
      2. Now when you sign in on  https://www.familysearch.org  with your LDS account (upper right hand corner), you see a new tab "Family Tree" next to the FS logo which gives you to the new interface for your data in nFS -- called FamilySearch Family Tree (FS FT)
      3. On this interface editing is easy and you can edit things you didn't submit yourself; you can also enter URL's for sources and images.  FamilySearch says this interface will be used by everyone by the end of 2012.
    4. 1940 US Census was released last month (2 Apr 2012) and images are now posted several places including  http://1940census.archives.gov/ -- To find people before the index is finished you can first find the Enumeration District at  http://www.stevemorse.org .
    5. Help index the 1940 US Census -- Sign up with your LDS account at  http://the1940census.com/?cid=fsHomeT1940Plt
  5. This class will discuss and demo some freeware programs for help with notes and transcribing written and audio items

    6. EVERNOTE

  6. Freeware program for notes and files, has many features including synchronizing your notes between computers and at an online website
  7. Download from   http://www.evernote.com/
  8. Evernote helps and video tutorials -- http://www.evernote.com/about/video/
  9. Features of Evernote
    1. Can set up:  (1) Up to 250 synchronized notebooks, and  (2) as many local (non-synchronized) notebooks as you want, so you can have, for example, a general notebook for all FH notes, one for transcriptions of FH letters, and a local notebook for passwords and personal info.  Easy to move notes from one notebook to another
    2. Sync'd notebooks are stored both on your computer and online at the Evernote website -- https://www.evernote.com/Registration.action -- so they are available to you anywhere you can get to the Internet, including on mobile devices
    3. Local notebooks are only on your computer, so they are private
    4. Either type of notebook (synchronized or local) can be backed up to a flash drive or elsewhere and imported into Evernote on another computer; can export any notes or notebook in various formats, e.g. text or html
    5. Notes can contain text, images, URL's, videos
    6. Notes can be tagged in categories so clicking on a tag shows you all notes with that tag
    7. Usage button shows you how much of your free space you have used in the 30-day cycle -- seems to includes plenty of space for many notes
    8. Can edit notes and titles of notes at any time; has an undo feature so deleting part of a note is recoverable, but not if you delete the entire note
    9. Has a spell checker for editing notes
    10. Searching -- can show and/or search all notebooks or only selected ones; shows search results highlighted; searching for "win" (no quotes) brings up results with "Win", "Windows", "wind", etc.; searching for "Utah Valley" (in quotes) searches for that exact string; has global find and replace
    11. Has OCR capabilities on pdf's you save so they are every-word-searchable, but you don't see the entire OCR file, i.e. the words are stored in the index when you search for them
    12. Has easy way to clip parts of a website to save with the URL -- freeware browser add-ons Print Friendly and Clarify
  10. Demo of Evernote

    11. TRANSCRIPT

  11. Freeware program to help you transcribe images of documents -- you read and type what you see
  12. Does NOT do handwriting recognition
  13. Download from http://www.jacobboerema.nl/en/Freeware.htm -- website also has instructions and helps
  14. Features
    1. Has two panels, one to show image of handwritten document and one for you to type what you see
    2. Pressing Enter at end of typed line moves both the document and the text line down
    3. Can set spacing to suit the document being transcribed
    4. Can move the image, enlarge it or make it negative to view it better
    5. After you have typed the document you can copy and paste the text into any program you want
  15. Demo of Transcript

    16. AUDACITY

  16. Freeware open source program that does audio recording and editing
  17. Download program from http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
  18. Audacity Manual and video tutorials at  http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Main_Page
  19. Features
    1. Program is very comprehensive and does many things with audio, but you can use the basics fairly easily
    2. Can record mono or stereo by microphone or by line in from a device such as a tape recorder
    3. Has input monitor to show input volume so you can set it appropriately
    4. Has record and playback start and stop buttons like a tape recorder and can set timer to stop it after given time
    5. On playback you can jump to various parts of the recording to edit, delete, copy, amplify, decrease volume, splice in sections, etc.
    6. Can apply labels to mark where sections start or end in the audio file
    7. After editing you can export the edited file in various formats, e.g. wav or mp3, and you can include metadata about the file
  20. Demo of Audacity

    21. LISTEN N WRITE

  21. Freeware program that helps you transcribe audio recordings; you listen and type what you hear -- has playback and text editor together
  22. Does NOT automatically transcribe the audio
  23. Download from  http://www.softoxi.com/listen-n-write.html
  24. Listen N Write video tutorial -- http://www.softoxi.com/listen-n-write-video-trailer-screenshots.html
  25. Features
    1. Requires audio to be in digital .wav or .mp3 format so it can be played on the computer
    2. Can control audio playback with function keys so you can keep your hands on the keyboard
    3. F5 starts and stops audio and can be set it to pause a specified time interval, e.g. 4 seconds
    4. F6 can be set to skip backwards a specified time interval, e.g. 3 seconds
    5. F7 can be set to skip forwards a specified time interval, e.g. 3 seconds
  26. Demo of Listen N Write

    27. CONCLUSIONS

  27. These are very helpful freeware programs for notes and transcribing images and audio; for many other freeware programs for family history see Don's Freeware Notes 
Return to the Utah Valley Technology and Genealogy Users Group Home Page or Don's Class Listings Page .