{"id":2820,"date":"2026-09-22T23:09:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/?p=2820"},"modified":"2026-09-22T23:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:20:08","slug":"exporting-captions-to-excel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/2026\/09\/22\/exporting-captions-to-excel\/","title":{"rendered":"Exporting Captions to Excel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many of our customers need to export transcripts that display &#8220;In&#8221; and &#8220;Out&#8221; points and speaker names for use in captions, especially for broadcast.  One common workflow is to export an Excel spreadsheet, where each line effectively becomes a record.  For example: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"212\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_759-1024x212.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2822\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>InqScribe&#8217;s free form edit field provides a lot of flexibility, but sometimes a bit of structure is helpful, especially for transcripts.  InqScribe has a number of built-in tools that can help you create transcripts like this, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Handling speaker names<\/li><li>Handling In and Out timecodes<\/li><li>Exporting to tab-delimited text for import into Excel<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The key is to first format your transcript, then export the transcript to &#8220;Tab-delimited text,&#8221; then import into Excel.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"1-formatting-in-inqscribe\">1. Formatting in InqScribe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 id=\"use-colons-for-speaker-names\">Use colons (:) for Speaker Names<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>InqScribe can recognize speaker names when using the tab-delimited text exporter. InqScribe expects the following format for each record (line):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"block-350a5a4b-bfc0-4e81-8489-50a7eda8b44c\" class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>&#091;IN]SPEAKER: Utterance&#091;OUT]<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>So for example, if you enter your text like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>&#091;00:00:00:00]NAME ONE: Some random text&#091;00:00:01:00]\n&#091;00:00:01:00]NAME TWO: Here is some more random stuff&#091;00:00:03:00]<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>then InqScribe can export each line as a record\/row for import into Excel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edit your transcript to match this format, inserting a speaker name with a colon and adding [IN} and [OUT] timecodes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TIP: If you skip the [OUT] timecode, InqScribe will automatically use the next [IN] timecode as the [OUT], so it&#8217;s OK to skip it if the OUT timing is not critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TIP: If you&#8217;re using our Whisper automatic transcription, be sure to select &#8220;[IN] Text [OUT]&#8221; for the &#8220;Line Format&#8221; to automatically enter in and out points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>TIP: You can use another character as a delimiter, you don&#8217;t have to use a colon.  Just note the delimiter character during the export in the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"2-exporting-to-tab-delimited-text\">2. Exporting to Tab-delimited Text<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The Tab-delimited Text exporter will export each line of the transcript with tabs separating each field, e.g. : <code>in &lt;tab&gt; speaker name &lt;tab&gt; text &lt;tab&gt; out<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Excel can then import these files and convert each line into a field (column) for each row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you have your transcript formatted correctly, you want to export the transcript to &#8220;Tab-delimited Text&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>In InqScribe, select File &gt; Export &gt; Tab-delimited Text&#8230;<\/li><li>Make sure &#8220;Export Out Points&#8221; is checked<\/li><li>Check &#8220;Export Speaker Names&#8221;<\/li><li>Assuming you&#8217;re using a colon (:) as the speaker name delimiter, leave the &#8220;:&#8221; in the &#8220;Speaker Name Delimiter&#8221; field. (Or enter your own delimiter character.)<\/li><li>Enter a name for the file.  Click &#8220;Choose&#8221; if you want to select a folder other than the current directory.<\/li><li>Click &#8220;Export&#8221;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>The resulting text file will look something like this (note the tabs are invisible):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>IN OUT SPEAKER TRANSCRIPT\n00:00:00.00 00:00:01.00 NAME ONE Some random text\n00:00:01.00 00:00:03.00 NAME TWO Here is some more random stuff<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Now you&#8217;re ready to import into Excel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"3-importing-to-excel\">3. Importing to Excel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When importing to Excel, Excel needs a little bit of extra information to know how to handle the import:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Import as text, choose tab delimited<\/li><li>For each IN and OUT column, make sure you select &#8220;Text&#8221; (not &#8220;General&#8221;) for formatting or Excel will try to treat the timecodes as numbers (e.g. trailing zeroes will be removed)<\/li><li>Re-order and rename the row headers as you need (e.g. &#8220;dialogue&#8221;, &#8220;in cue&#8221;, etc.)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s a step-by-step:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Start Excel<\/li><li>Select File &gt; Open and select the tab-delimited text file<\/li><li>Excel should automatically detect that you want to import a text document.  In the &#8220;Text Import Wizard &#8211; Step 1 of 3&#8221; make sure &#8220;Delimited&#8221; is selected and click &#8220;Next&#8221;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_755-1024x731.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2825\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_755-1024x731.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_755-300x214.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_755-768x549.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_755.png 1246w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"4\"><li>In the &#8220;Text Import Wizard &#8211; Step 2 of 3&#8221;, make sure &#8220;Tab&#8221; is selected and click &#8220;Next&#8221;<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_756-1-1024x731.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2827\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_756-1-1024x731.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_756-1-300x214.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_756-1-768x549.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_756-1.png 1246w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"5\"><li>In &#8220;Text Import Wizard &#8211; Step 3 of 3&#8243;&#8230;<\/li><li>&#8230;click on the first column &#8220;IN&#8221; in the Preview below and click on the &#8220;Text&#8221; radio button<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_757-1024x731.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2829\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_757-1024x731.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_757-300x214.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_757-768x549.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_757.png 1246w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"7\"><li>&#8230;click on the second column &#8220;OUT&#8221; in the Preview below and click on the &#8220;Text&#8221; radio button<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"731\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_758-1-1024x731.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2837\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_758-1-1024x731.png 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_758-1-300x214.png 300w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_758-1-768x549.png 768w, https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/09\/screenshot_758-1.png 1246w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"8\"><li>Click &#8220;Finish&#8221;<\/li><li>Review the resulits<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>You might find that you have to do this a few times to resolve formatting and other issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can of course use Excel to rename and re-order the columns if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p>We hope you find this helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are always looking for ways to improve workflows, so if you have suggestions or questions, please don&#8217;t hesitate to reach out to us.  We learn a lot from our customers and many new features make their way in through these kinds of suggestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please email us at support@inqscribe.com with any questions or suggestions!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many of our customers need to export transcripts that display &#8220;In&#8221; and &#8220;Out&#8221; points and speaker names for use in captions, especially for broadcast. One common workflow is to export an Excel spreadsheet, where each line effectively becomes a record. For example: InqScribe&#8217;s free form edit field provides a lot of flexibility, but sometimes a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,10,11,12,13],"tags":[41,76,77,266,175,185],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2820"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2842,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2820\/revisions\/2842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.inquirium.net\/inqscribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}