Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
While I edit and write “how-to” articles, I also sometimes find myself in the need of how-to directions myself. But when I do a search for guidance on, say, a difficult crochet stitch, it often helps to have a blow-by-blow text explanation that I can have handy without having to sit and watch a video over and over again.
For that, there’s YouTube’s automatically generated transcript. A transcript is not only useful when you want to view a text scroll of what’s being said while you’re watching the video, but is handy as a reference point afterward. For example, if you don’t have the time or patience to sit through an entire video, then you can simply glance through the transcr...
