Renaming speakers

Transcripts are much easier to read when each speaker’s words are clearly separated by paragraph breaks and labeled with the correct speaker labels. Reduct tries to detect speaker changes automatically and labels them as “Speaker 1,” “Speaker 2,” and so on.

You can easily rename these default speaker names to actual names in one go.

How to rename speaker throughout the transcript

  1. Click on the speaker label and type the correct name for the speaker.
  2. You’ll see a checkbox Change X instances,which lets you update all paragraphs identified as that speaker at once. Make sure the checkbox is ticked.
  3. Hit save. You will notice that the Speaker label will change to your entered name throughout the transcript.

When the automatic detection isn't quite right

Reduct’s speaker detection works best with clear audio, but sometimes it can confuse speakers who sound similar or miss a speaker change.

If this happens, you can manually adjust the speaker labels:

  • Uncheck the Change X instances box when renaming, so you can assign the right name to just one paragraph.

In the example below, I want the third paragraph to be named "Kate Williams" as it's not the same speaker as the others marked "Speaker 2", so I uncheck the box. In the second action, I want to rename all remaining paragraphs labeled "Speaker 2" to be labeled as "Yvon."

Combining two speakers into one

If the same person is labeled as a different speaker (for example, “Speaker 2” and “Speaker 3”), you can rename both to the same name. Reduct will then treat them as a single speaker throughout the transcript.

When a speaker change isn't correctly identified

If the challenge is that the breaks aren't consistently right, then the first step is to manually break apart paragraphs where you hear the speaker change (and then optionally, recombine them).

In the example below, there's a sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph that is actually the first speaker, so I select it, "extract paragraph" to merge it with the paragraph I want it to belong to, and rename the remaining paragraph to represent the actual speaker (making sure the "change all" box is unticked).