This is the User document from Verbaia’s Help menu. If something goes wrong, use the companion Technical support document instead.

Verbaia User Document

This is the user guide for Verbaia.

It is the document the User document link in Verbaia's Help menu points to.

It walks you through the whole program, from your first open to saving your finished work.

If something goes wrong, the companion Technical support document is the one to use — it is written so you can hand it to an AI assistant and be walked through the fix.

1. What Verbaia is

Verbaia is where you fix a transcript after it has been made.

You bring two things: the recording, and the transcript text that came from it.

Verbaia lines the two up, word by word, against the sound. Then it flags the passages that look wrong, and you work through them — listening, correcting, and deciding — until the transcript is right.

Verbaia is a program that runs on your own PC. Your recordings and transcripts stay on your machine.

There is one version of Verbaia. Every copy has every feature. There are no tiers and nothing is held back.

Inside the program, Verbaia uses Whisper — speech tools built into the program — to work out where each word sits in your recording. Those word timings are what let you click a word and hear it.

2. What you need before you start

A Windows PC. This release of Verbaia is a Windows program. [TO CONFIRM — Mac release: a Mac version is planned; its timing has not been announced.]
Your license key. Your key comes to you by email — when you buy Verbaia, or when you start a trial. Keep that email. You will type the key once, on the first screen.
A recording and its transcript. The transcript must be a plain text file — a .txt file — and it must have exactly the same name as the recording, apart from the ending. For example, interview.wav and interview.txt.

[TO CONFIRM — System requirements: the minimum Windows version, memory, and free disk space for Verbaia have not been published yet.]

3. Installing Verbaia

Verbaia arrives as one file: the Setup program.

Run the Setup program.
Follow the steps Setup shows you.
Setup puts everything Verbaia needs on your PC in that one pass. Nothing is downloaded during the install — the speech tools are inside the package.
When Setup finishes, Verbaia is ready to open.

Verbaia lives in one folder on your PC: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Verbaia. The program and its working data are both in that folder.

4. Your key, and the first open

The first time you open Verbaia, you land on a screen headed Before you begin. That screen asks for your key. No key, no run — that is normal, not a fault.

Open Verbaia.
Type your key into the key entry on the Before you begin screen. Type it exactly as it came in your email.
Verbaia checks the key.
When the key checks out, the full program loads.

A few key facts worth knowing:

You type your key once. After that, Verbaia opens straight into the program.
If you uninstall Verbaia and install it again, you will need to enter your key again. That is normal.
A later version of Verbaia takes its own key. A Version 1.0 key works with Version 1.0.
Never send anyone your license key — including us. We will never ask for it. The only place a key belongs is in Verbaia's own key entry.
You can enter a key again at any time from the Help menu: Help → Enter key.

5. The trial

A trial key runs the full program — every feature, nothing held back — for 7 days from the first time it is activated on your machine.

When the trial ends, Verbaia tells you, and asks for a full Version 1.0 key to keep going. Your work is still there; entering a full key picks up where you left off.

6. Opening your files

Verbaia works on a pair: a recording and its transcript. The two files join by name — the names must match exactly, apart from the ending (.wav, .txt, and so on), letter for letter, capitals included.

Open the File menu and choose Open file…
Pick your recording.
Pick the transcript text file with the matching name.
The two files join as a pair, and the transcript opens in the work screen.

There are no prompts in this process. When the pair joins, a small note at the bottom of the screen confirms it — for example, "Paired interview.wav with its transcript."

Reading the file list:

A recording shown in grey has no transcript partner yet.
A transcript shown in white is waiting for its recording.
Once the pair joins, both show as a working pair.

The first time you open files, Verbaia also starts a project for you, named Verbaia Project plus the date. You do not have to stop and set one up.

On a brand-new install, Verbaia shows practice files first, so you can try things out safely. The moment you open one of your own files, the practice files step aside and your work takes their place.

7. Word timings — how Verbaia lines the words up

When a pair opens, Verbaia works out where each word sits in the recording. This is called indexing, and it runs on its own.

You will see it working in chunks — a note like "Indexing word timing — chunk 3 of 16". Let it finish.

When it is done, the timings are kept. The transcript header shows how many word timings are stored — for example, "527 cached word timings". You do not have to wait through indexing again for the same pair.

Word timings power two things you will use constantly — clicking a word to hear it (next sections), and the time marks above words in the transcript.

There is a section for word timing in Options, under Audio word timing.

8. Reviewing and correcting

This is the main work in Verbaia.

Verbaia reads your transcript against the recording and flags the passages that look doubtful. You work through them one at a time. The top of the screen shows where you are — for example, "1 of 4 · 4 undecided".

For each flagged passage:

Read the passage. The flagged words are highlighted in the transcript.
Listen if you need to — click a flagged word to hear it (see section 9).
If the passage is right as it stands, press Keep.
If a word is wrong, click the word. It appears in the Your correction box.
Type the right word in the Your correction box.
Press Apply correction.
If you change your mind about an edit, Revert undoes it.
Move through the passages with Previous edit and Next edit.

Two things Verbaia points out for you while you review:

Duplicates. If the same phrase appears twice in a row — a common transcription slip — Verbaia labels it, for example: Duplicate: "wave after wave".
Misspellings. Words Verbaia thinks are misspelled are underlined, with a note under the correction box: "Misspellings are underlined."

When every flagged passage is marked, the panel shows Transcript Complete — "Every flagged passage is marked." — and "You've reached the end of the queue."

From that panel you can save your reviewed file (section 11), or go back with Review previous edit to look at any passage again.

9. Listening, and moving around the transcript

Click a word in the transcript to hear the recording at that word. Playback starts a few seconds before the word, so you hear it in context. That head start is the pre-roll; it is 10 seconds to start with, and you can change it in Options, under Audio word timing.
Time marks. Small time labels sit above words in the transcript — for example, 00:46, 00:47 — showing where those words fall in the recording.
The playback controls sit under the filter strip: play, Loop (play the current passage again and again), step back and forward, jump back or ahead by a few seconds (the −3s and +3s buttons), and a slider you can drag to move through the recording.
Select a passage by dragging. Drag across a block of words to select it, then press Use selection at the top of the transcript. The selected text becomes the passage you are working on.

10. The five audio cleanup filters

Under the heading Audio Cleanup sit five filters. They clean the sound so the words are easier to hear and easier to line up.

The filters are applied before transcription. Your stored audio is untouched — Verbaia never changes your original recording.

Each filter has a switch and a dial. The dial runs from 1 to 10. Turn a filter on, then turn its dial up or down while you listen — the change happens on the fly, across the whole file, not just in one passage.

The five filters, in plain words:

Wind filter — cuts low wind rumble. High-pass — it takes out the low roar under the voice.
Gain normalize — levels out quiet recordings. It raises or lowers the whole floor of the sound. Its dial works differently from the other four: 5 is neutral (the sound as it is), lower numbers make the whole recording quieter, and 1 is almost completely off. Higher numbers make the whole recording louder.
De-ess — tames harsh sibilance — the sharp s and sh sounds.
De-click — removes mouth clicks and pops.
De-plosive — softens p/b mic thumps — the puffs of air that hit the microphone on p and b sounds.

Three more controls on the same strip:

Preset bubbles — Buried word, Windy, and Harsh sibilance set several filters at once for a common problem. One press, and you can still adjust the dials afterwards.
Reset — turns every filter off and puts every dial back where it started: Gain back to 5, the other four back to 1.
Double-click a dial — sends that one dial home: Gain back to 5, any other dial back to 1.

When you first open a pair, all five filters are off, with the dials at their starting places — Wind 1, Gain 5, De-ess 1, De-click 1, De-plosive 1.

11. Saving, and project files

From the Transcript Complete panel — and the File menu — you have these saves:

Save reviewed file — saves the corrected transcript: the finished text, with your corrections in it.
Save As… — saves the reviewed file under a name and place you choose.
Save project — saves the whole project as a project file. Project files end in .pjt.

A .pjt project file holds everything about the job: the transcript in full, the word timings lined up against the original recording, and your review work. Save your project, and you can close Verbaia and pick the job up again exactly where you left it.

To reopen a project, use Open Project in the File menu, or pick from your recent projects.

12. Starting fresh, and the practice files

There is no button that resets Verbaia or brings the practice files back. That is by design.

If you want a completely fresh start — the program exactly as it was on the day it was installed — uninstall Verbaia and install it again (section 14). A fresh install starts at zero, and asks for your key again.

13. Help inside the program

The Help menu is your first stop:

User document — this document, on our website.
Technical support document — the support guide, on our website. It is written so you can hand it to an AI assistant and be walked through a fix.

Both documents live on our website, not inside the program, so we can update them on the fly — you always get the newest version, with no program update needed. - Help essentials (works offline) — a short built-in page with the essentials: the support address, how your key works, and how the trial works. It is built into Verbaia, so it works with no internet. - Enter key — type a key, or a new key, at any time. - About — shows your version and build, and confirms "License verified." This is the first thing support will ask about.

And the standing rule, in the program and out of it: email us at support@verbaia.com if you are stuck. A real person reads every message. Never send anyone your license key, including us — we will never ask for it.

14. Uninstalling and reinstalling

Uninstalling removes Verbaia and everything in its folder — the program, its settings, and its working data — completely.

Before you uninstall:

Save your project (section 11), and keep the .pjt file somewhere of your own.
Save your reviewed file, if you want the finished transcript.
Have your key email ready — a fresh install asks for the key again.

Then uninstall Verbaia the usual Windows way, and run the Setup program again when you want it back.

15. Your privacy, in one paragraph

Verbaia runs on your PC, and your recordings and transcripts stay on your machine. In Options there is a switch called Help us improve Verbaia. It is on unless you turn it off. While it is on, Verbaia sends us anonymous usage facts — no name, no email, no key — and, when you correct a word, the pair of words involved: the wrong text and your correction, as text only, never audio. Those pairs are how Verbaia learns to flag better. Turn the switch off at any time and nothing is sent.