Transcribe Audio

Transcribe Audio uploads a recording to Gemini AI and writes the whole transcript into the active cell. It saves you replaying and typing: a Monday site coordination meeting, a discussion with the supervision consultant on site, a voice memo taken while inspecting an activity — you start from a text draft instead of a blank page.

The command lives in the File Tools menu of the File and Print group, on the DVD Addin tab.

Commands in this group

Command	What it does
Transcribe Audio	Transcribe a .wav, .mp3, .flac, .ogg or .aac file into the active cell
Preferences	Configure the Gemini API key — required before the first run
AI Chat	Summarise, split and tidy the transcript into minutes
Translate	Translate the transcript for a foreign consultant
OCR file	Same AI family, but reads text from images and PDFs instead of audio

Turning a coordination meeting into minutes

1. Record the meeting. .m4a files from a phone are not accepted — convert them to .mp3 or .wav first.
2. Split long recordings into shorter parts: the longer the file, the longer the wait and the more API quota it consumes.
3. Open Preferences and set the Gemini API key if you have not already, and check that the machine is online.
4. Click an empty cell to receive the text — for example B2 on the Minutes sheet.
5. Go to tab DVD Addin → group File and Print → menu File Tools → click Transcribe Audio.
6. The "Select an audio file to transcribe" dialog opens, filtered to *.wav; *.mp3; *.flac; *.ogg; *.aac → pick the recording → Open.
7. Wait. Excel is unresponsive while a long file is processed — that is expected, do not keep clicking.
8. The full transcript lands in that one cell. Switch on Wrap Text and raise the row height to read it, or copy it into Word.
9. If the recording was split into parts, run the command again for each part into the cells below (B3, B4…) and join them in order.
10. Split the text into action lines by hand, then use AI Chat to summarise or polish the wording before it goes for signature.

Example

Coordination_2026-05-11.mp3, twelve minutes from Monday morning. Select B2 on the Minutes sheet and run the command — the whole meeting arrives as one block of text in B2. After splitting it up by hand, the minutes read:

Item discussed	Responsible	Due
Production piling on plot B at 42 of 60 piles, two days late after rain	Piling crew	15/05/2026
Plot C site access still not handed over	Project management unit	14/05/2026
Six extra steel fixers needed for pile caps F1–F4	Main contractor	13/05/2026
Blinding concrete test certificate for plot A still missing	QA/QC	16/05/2026
Basement waterproofing method to be agreed with the consultant	Site manager	17/05/2026

The transcript is only a draft: names, element codes and every figure have to be checked against the site notebook before the minutes are signed.

Tips and caveats

• The result overwrites the active cell and cannot be undone with Ctrl+Z — always select an empty cell first.
• The entire transcript goes into one cell; the command does not separate speakers, does not add timestamps and does not break the text into rows for you.
• Only .wav, .mp3, .flac, .ogg and .aac are accepted. Anything else (including .m4a) has to be converted first.
• Without an API key or an internet connection the cell receives an error message instead of text — check the key in Preferences and run it again.
• The recording is uploaded to an external AI service: do not use it for confidential meetings or sensitive project information.
• Accuracy follows recording quality: site noise, people talking over each other, proper names and item codes are all easily misheard — check figures and names before the text goes into a formal record.
• The longer the file, the longer the wait and the more API quota it burns — splitting a long recording into parts is the fastest and cheapest way to run it.
• The command needs a current DVDAddin account (Standard or PRO); during the trial period it is fully available.

See also

• File Tools — the other commands in the same File Tools menu.
• AI Assistant — edit and summarise the transcript inside Excel.
• PDF and OCR — the same idea, but pulling text out of images and scanned PDFs.
• Translate — translate the transcript into another language.