Transcripts

Dr. Heiser’s Naked Bible podcast is one of my favorites. With 215 episodes and climbing it’s become a challenge to find which episode mentions a topic of interest. Thankfully, there’s a transcript made of each episode. But how do you search the content of hundreds of separate files?

Like this:

Please support the NB podcast and download the transcripts from Dr. Heiser’s website as they come out. If you need a jumpstart, I’ve put zip files on the Divine Council Forum with all transcripts as of May 24, 2018. I won’t be keeping these up to date so download new transcripts from the NB Podcast site.

Searching Filenames is Easy; Searching File Content is Hard

Searching the contents of hundreds of files is no easy task. The two best (only?) tools for this are Adobe Acrobat Pro and DevonThink.

Acrobat Pro

With Acrobat Pro, there are two options to search multiple pdfs: search a directory or search an index. My searches take five seconds without an index and two seconds with an index. I haven’t used Acrobat to search more than 200 files in a directory but presume the lag time will increase files increase.

DevonThink

DevonThink searches return instantly. An index is built and updated as files are imported and the search time for 215 NB transcripts is not discernible. I have another directory with 1900 files of similar size and the search time for that directory is also indiscernible. Wow.

Recommendation

Both Acrobat and DevonThink are crucial to my workflows. If I had to choose one tool for this job, however, it would be DevonThink. Searching the contents of thousands of files is what it’s designed to do, and it does it exceptionally well. If you need to perform searches like this on a routine basis, the $149 cost is a no-brainer. It comes with the best OCR conversion engine (ABBYY FineReader) which costs more than DevonThink itself, go figure.

Adobe seems to overprice the standalone purchase of their software to encourage users to choose a subscription, instead. Since I use six of the tools in the Adobe CC suite on a routine basis, the $50/month is justified. Your mileage may vary.

(Photo credit: SNL screen capture)

I’ve spent the past two weeks coming up with a format to create and disseminate transcripts of video and audio materials I find important enough to have in text format.

With the proliferation of videos and podcasts, transcripts have become more useful in my work. As a writer and teacher, transcripts enable me to:

Skip long videos and podcasts (by reading or scanning them, instead.)
Search hundreds of videos, podcasts, or lectures by keywords.
Listen and read at the same time.
Come back up to speed quickly on an “old” video or podcast.
Quote the text without having to transcribe or retype.

I use DevonThink to store, scan, and search thousands of documents. Transcripts make videos, podcasts, & lectures available to that research workflow.

As each transcript is completed, I’ll make them freely available on either DivineCouncil.org (Spiritual) or McGillespie.com (Business, Family, Legal, Government, Health, Personal.)

Note: Each transcript (pdf) will be digitally signed by yours truly for web security. If you see my digital signature, you’ll know the document has not been altered from the signed original.

How To Search Every Naked Bible Transcript by Keyword in 5 Seconds or Less

Searching Filenames is Easy; Searching File Content is Hard

Acrobat Pro

DevonThink

Recommendation

Transcripts for Writers, Believers, & Outliers