Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
While I edit and write “how-to” articles, I also sometimes find myself in 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 it is also 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 transcript to get the gist of the subject and save it for future…
