Updated October 2026 · Podcast sound and editing
Show notes come from the transcript: write a short summary, add timestamps for the main topics, list the links and people mentioned, and pull one or two quotes. Check every name and link before you publish.
Good show notes help people decide to press play, find the part they want and share the episode. They also help search engines understand what an episode covers. A transcript makes writing them much faster, provided you clean it first and check the facts that matter.
A speech-to-text transcript gets most words right and some names and technical terms wrong. Read it once and fix every name, brand and term. Remove the ums and the repeated words that add nothing. A clean transcript turns the notes into a quick job rather than a rewrite.
Write two or three sentences that say what the episode covers and who it is for. Listeners decide in a few seconds, so put the most useful point first. Avoid describing the show itself. Say what the listener will learn or hear.
Find the main topics in the transcript and note the time each one starts. Use short labels, such as “why the first draft failed”, rather than long sentences. Timestamps help listeners jump to what they came for, and they are easy to read off a transcript editor.
Note every book, tool, product and person mentioned, with a public link where one exists. Check that each link opens before you publish. If a guest has asked not to be linked or named, respect that and leave the link out.
A short quote makes the notes feel alive. Quote exactly, keep it short, and check it against the audio, because transcripts can mishear a word. A quote that makes sense on its own works best.
The transcript can also make captions and a text version of the episode. The caption export guide shows the common file formats, which makes the transcript useful well beyond the show notes.
Automatic transcripts can be wrong, especially with accents, crosstalk and specialist words. Always check the facts in the notes against the episode. Do not publish a claim you have not confirmed in the audio.
Integrated LUFS, true peak and streaming targets. Runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded.
Only after cleaning. Speech tools miss names and terms, and show notes need a short summary that a transcript does not give.
Short enough to scan. A summary, timestamps and links are usually enough.
Check the privacy settings of any tool you use. Some services send audio to their servers, so read what each one does with your files.
Not for every line. Mark the main topics so listeners can jump to what they want.
