Name your speakers, colour them, and reassign passages

Karsten B. Kreh & Paul K. Jäckel Karsten B. Kreh & Paul K. Jäckel Paul K. Jäckel In the video: Paul K. Jäckel

After the transcription, the speakers are first called Speaker 01 and Speaker 02. In the editor you turn them into real names, individual colours, and correctly assigned passages in a few steps. This article briefly explains each of these steps.

What memozero prepares

memozero detects the speakers during the transcription and prepares two things:

  • Automatic numbering. The speakers are called Speaker 01, Speaker 02 and so on. In the Word export, memozero also numbers each speaker section in sequence, for example:

    1. Speaker 01: Good that this worked out.
    2. Speaker 02: Yes.
    3. Speaker 01: You know why we are here?

    You can use these numbers for citation. The editor shows the same numbers in the margin. TXT, Markdown and JSON do not use this numbering. In the German interface the labels are Person 01 and Person 02.

  • Automatic colour. Each speaker receives a colour of their own. You can tell the contributions apart even before you rename them.

Before you start a transcription, you only set the number of speakers. You assign the names later in the editor.

Rename a speaker

Renaming is the first step that already makes sense at the beginning of the review. Proceed as follows:

  1. Click the speaker name above a section.
  2. Type the label you want.
  3. Press Enter or click beside the field.
  4. Press Esc to cancel and keep the original label.
  5. Click Save. memozero does not save changes on its own.

Every rename applies immediately to the whole transcript. There is no extra command to “rename everywhere”, because every rename already applies automatically throughout the transcript.

memozero adds the colon after the name. You do not type it.

A practical example

Short labels work well. In a record you might enter Q for Speaker 01, which stands for the question, and A for Speaker 02, which stands for the answer. Once you confirm, the whole transcript shows only Q: and A: above the sections. Combined with different speaker colours, that saves space while keeping a clear overview. In a research evaluation or a journalistic interview you can use the same labels for interviewer and interviewee.

Assign a colour

A colour of their own helps you recognise speakers quickly. If you need to, you can change a speaker’s colour throughout the transcript. Proceed as follows:

  1. Click the coloured dot to the left of the speaker name.
  2. Choose one of the twelve colours in the colour field.

The colour is saved immediately. That is different from the name, which remains an unsaved change.

You can change red and blue to orange and green, for example. You can change the colour again at any time.

The colour is a reading aid in the editor only. It does not appear in the export. In DOCX the speaker name is black. It is bold, italic or underlined only when every word by that speaker has that formatting, see the next section.

Highlight every statement by a speaker

Besides the colour there is a second way to set a speaker apart visually, and this one is included in an export. You can highlight every statement by a speaker in bold, italic or underline with one command:

  1. Right-click a speaker name.
  2. A small menu titled Highlight all statements appears.
  3. Choose Bold, Italic or Underline.

The formatting applies to every word by that speaker in the whole transcript. A second click on the same item removes the effect.

In records, Bold for one role is usually enough. Bold, italic and underline together make the text restless.

The highlight belongs to the words. If you later assign a passage to another speaker, it keeps its previous formatting. Apply the highlight at the end.

Assign wrongly labelled words to the correct speaker

If only one word is assigned to the wrong speaker, right-click it and choose the correct speaker under Assign to.

If a longer passage of words was assigned wrongly, proceed as follows:

  1. Click the first or last wrongly assigned word and drag with the mouse button held down across the wrongly assigned passage.
  2. Right-click one of the selected words.
  3. Choose Assign to. The number of selected words appears in brackets, for example Assign to (6).
  4. Choose the correct speaker.

memozero assigns the word or passage to the newly chosen speaker. memozero names the new speaker automatically, according to your selection.

If the word or passage sits in the middle of a speaker section, memozero inserts a new speaker change. In the DOCX export the running section numbers then shift. Cite those numbers only after you have reviewed the whole transcript.

The speaker who already owns the passage appears in the menu with the note “assigned”. You cannot select that speaker.

Add a new speaker

If memozero does not detect a speaker anywhere in the transcript (for example because someone only opens a door once and speaks), you can add a new speaker by hand. Proceed as follows:

  1. Open the Assign to menu with a right-click.
  2. Choose New Speaker at the bottom.
  3. In the Create new speaker dialog, enter a name in the Name field.
  4. Click Create.

If the field stays empty, the dialog reports “Name your speaker”. You also find the same path under Add word.

Note: You can assign a speaker, but you cannot delete one. If you created a speaker by mistake or assigned the wrong one, assign their words to the correct speaker through the right-click menu. Undo is faster.

What arrives in the export

The four export formats take over the following properties:

PropertyDOCXMarkdownTXTJSON
Speaker nameyesyesyesyes
Bold, italic, underlineyesyesnoyes (as a field)
Speaker colournononono

If you want a role to stand out in the finished document, use Bold, not the colour. For a plain TXT file, rely on clear names, because no formatting arrives there.