The first three buttons on the Configurations section enable you to:
1 – make the FTW Transcriber add timestamps automatically
2 – set up the appearance of your timestamps
3 – set up keyboard shortcuts
Click each button to see its pop-up. The Help links for those buttons are on the pop-ups.
Under those three buttons is displayed the name of the current configuration, and a Save As button.
In the FTW Transcriber, a “configuration” means a set of pre-saved settings. If you have a transcription company, you can save all your settings for timestamps, etc, into a configuration file and give that configuration file to your typists so that they can open it and begin working in your format straightaway. You can save as many configuration files as you like, so you can create different ones for different clients.
If you’re an independent typist, you can also create different configurations for different clients. Imagine you have three clients who all want their timestamps formatted differently. Instead of having to manually change your timestamp settings every time you work for a different one of those three clients, you can pre-save each client’s settings as a separate configuration, and then just open the relevant configuration for each client whenever you do work for them.
A configuration saves the following data:
– whether the client wants timestamps to be added automatically, and in what way (i.e. regularly every few seconds, or every paragraph, or both)
– the appearance of the timestamps for that client
– the Keyboard Shortcuts you want to use for that client’s transcript markings (e.g. whether they want you to type “(unclear)” or “indistinct” or “[inaudible]”, etc.)
Configurations do NOT save data such as hotkeys, pedal switch, PX and RX, jumpback, etc, because those are a matter of your typing style and do not relate to clients.
The best thing about saving your configurations is that you can send them to other people. If you run a transcription company and you want to make sure all your transcribers keep to your in-house style guide, you can save a configuration on your computer called, for example, “housestyle”, and simply send it to your transcribers as an email attachment.
When you save a configuration, it is stored as a file on your computer in a folder called “Configuration”, normally located somewhere like this:
C:\Program Files\The FTW Transcriber
or
C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Roaming\The FTW Transcriber (where “xxxxx” is your user name)
If you cannot find that folder, search on your C drive for a file called FTWT.exe. “Configuration” is in the same folder as that file.
To send a configuration to a transcriber, just send them the file by email, or make it available for download from your web site. The transcriber needs to put that file into their Configuration folder, then access it by opening their copy of the FTW Transcriber and clicking Settings, then Open Saved Configuration.
If you want your transcription company’s configuration file to be pre-loaded in all copies of the FTW Transcriber so that no transcriber ever needs to ask you for it, please contact us.