Edit data and transcripts

In Dovetail, the editor experience differs from common text-only document tools. It is purpose-built to make it quick and easy for you to work with and analyze data imported into projects.

When opening your data in a project, you'll see the main content body, the editor toolbar at the top, and a sidebar with icons to the right. In the sidebar, this is where you'll find and quickly navigate to your note's magic summary, highlights, tags, fields, and comments.

You can also collapse the sidebar from view. To do this, hover over the border and click the arrow to Hide sidebar. The sidebar can be re-opened at any time with the same action.

Quickly understand important takeaways from standalone video, audio, or documents with magic summarize. When importing files into a project, we'll automatically generate a summary generate a summary of all text content.

To manually create a note summary, you must have edit permissions to the original project, and the note or insight must be Editable.

• To do this, open the summary tab in the sidebar and press Summarize.

• From there, you can select the Edit option in the syummary card to type any changes you'd like to update.

Any video or audio files that have a transcript will also display summaries in timestamped sections, which you can use to navigate quickly to key parts of your audio or video file.

Summarization runs in the background, so you can navigate away from the note or close the tab, and it will still be added once it has been generated.

Summaries can be regenerated by selecting Regenerate at the bottom of the summary.

If you are starting from a blank note or editing a transcript, you can type / within the editor to see all available formatting options. Using this menu, you can create formatting types, including:

• Question block

• Paragraph

• Headers (H1, H2, H3)

• Lists (numbered, bulleted)

• Quote block

• Cards

• Dividers

• Tables

You can edit transcripts and other text content added to your project by placing your cursor where you want to make changes and entering updated content.

Most text formatting options have an equivalent keyboard shortcut. To view available shortcuts, click the Actions ··· menu in the top right of the note, then click Shortcuts.

If there is a specific word or phrase that is incorrectly identified throughout the transcript, you can use Find and replace to update this in bulk across the note.

While our AI speech-engine will attempt to automatically detect different speakers, there are times when it doesn’t get it right.

You can merge two speaker sections into one by placing your cursor at the start of the second section and pressing backspace.

Similarly, you can split one speaker section into two by placing your cursor inside and pressing enter.

You can change or rename the speaker for a monologue (a period of speech by one person).

To do this, click on the default speaker name (Speaker 1 and Speaker 2). Next, either select an existing speaker or create a new speaker.

• To rename speakers in an entire transcript, click the speaker name, then click the actions menu ··· to the right of the speaker name and either type a free-text name, link a person, or link a user.

For when you need human-level accuracy with your transcripts or to analyze conversations in a language that we don't yet support – we've also added the option to bring your own transcript (in the form of a caption file).

We support importing any WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks) caption file. When you upload a .vtt caption file, we'll use the caption timestamps to sync with your video or audio file playback.

• To import your own transcript, click ••• below a video or audio file, select Upload transcript, then choose a compatible .vtt file.

To improve the accuracy of transcripts, you can submit a list of custom words or phrases that are not found in a dictionary (for example, company names or industry jargon) before starting a transcription. You can apply custom vocabulary at both the project and workspace level.

In a single project

• To do this, upload your file, select Begin, and navigate to Custom vocabulary.

• From there, enter words or phrases into the textbox and select Start transcription when complete.

In all projects across a workspace

To avoid entering terms every time before a transcription, workspace admins can save a global list of up to 100 words or phrases in Settings → Transcription → Workspace custom vocabulary. This will apply to all transcripts users create across all projects.

When you upload a video to a note, an early frame of the video is set as a thumbnail for the object in your workspace. You can change this thumbnail captured in your video.

• To do this, open the note and drag the video progress bar in the player to a new preview of a new screenshot.

• From there, click the ··· in the top right of the video and select Save as cover.

Question blocks are typically created when importing a CSV of survey data, however, you can add these manually to a data object in a project.

• To do this, click into the main editor, type / , and select Question block.

• From there, you can enter a question title as well as an answer in the section below.

You can edit text and remove a question block from a data page at any time. To remove this, click on ⋮⋮ to select your block and press Delete or Backspace on your keyboard to remove this.

Inline tables can be inserted by typing / within the editor and typing or selecting Table.

You can also add a Row or Column Header as well as delete rows, columns and the whole table itself. To do this, click on the table and use Delete or Backspace on your keyboard to remove.

Can I download a transcript from my project?

Yes! Check out Download project data with information on how to do this.

What languages do you support for creating a summary with AI?

At this time, we currently support Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Chinese (mandarin), Japanese and Russian.