CoLoop can process transcripts in both .docx and .txt format. Most transcript formats will work automatically - CoLoop uses AI to intelligently identify the structure and speaker patterns in your transcripts.
What CoLoop needs
For CoLoop to accurately process your transcript:
- All text in a transcript must be attributable to a speaker
- All speakers must be labelled (CoLoop will assign Moderator and Participant roles)
- Keep one interview per file
How CoLoop processes transcripts
CoLoop uses AI to automatically detect and parse various transcript formats. You don’t need to worry about specific formatting - just upload your transcript and CoLoop will figure out the structure.
Examples of transcripts CoLoop can read
Standard format with speaker labels:
Moderator:
Hi! There welcome to the interview.
Participant 1:
Hello -- thanks for having me!
Moderator: Hi! There welcome to the interview.
Participant 1: Hello -- thanks for having me!
M: Hi! There welcome to the interview.
R: Hello -- thanks for having me!
Moderator (00:00:11 - 00:00:30)
Hi! There welcome to the interview.
Amelia (00:00:31 - 00:00:55)
Hello -- thanks for having me!
Before uploading
Make sure:
- There is one interview per file
- Speaker labels are unique (if you’re adding segment data via spreadsheet, make sure names match exactly)
Using 3rd party transcripts from focus groups
If you have access to the original audio and it is in a language we support and under 10 speakers total you can also upload, transcribe and translate this directly in CoLoop
- Here we recommend merging together participants into a generic speaker label
- You can do this by running a find & replace on all instances of respondent
- And replacing them with something generic like “Focus Group 2 Participants”
- This approach will come with the drawback that theme counts will no longer be accurate
- It will also only be possible to summarise responses from the concensus of the whole group
Troubleshooting
If CoLoop can’t process your transcript
In rare cases where CoLoop’s AI can’t automatically detect your transcript structure, you can manually override the formatting:
You must make sure the labels exactly match the ones shown below.
- Prepend all moderator names with
CoLoop::R
- Prepend all participant names with
CoLoop::P
- Speaker labels must be on a new line preceding the text segment they apply to
Example
Below is an example of the original transcript and the edited transcript. When doing this you must make sure:
- The text matches up exactly - it is case sensitive so you must prepend speakers with
CoLoop::R or CoLoop::P accordingly
- When doing your find and replace, look for a text string that does not appear in the middle of a text segment. Typically the easiest way to do this is to ensure you are finding examples of names which come after a newline
- Newline characters can be captured in MS Word by using the
^p wildcard (more details here)
Original Transcript
Moderator
All right, well, let's go ahead and get started. So, my first question, amelia, I'll start with you on this one. Each of you is here because you said that this election, you voted for the very first time. And so I want to hear from each of you. Why did you decide to vote? Why participate in this election? So, Amelia, we'll start with you first.
Amelia
St sure. So, the last election, I was 19, so I was able to vote, but I didn't feel that I was educated enough on who to vote for to make a correct decision, and I didn't want to follow through with that. Now, this election, I'm a little bit older, and I think I have formed enough of an opinion to feel confident in my vote.
Moderator
Great. How about Dylan C. You say you voted for the first time in this election. Tell me a little bit about why you decided to participate this time.
Dylan C.
Yeah, so last election, I was 17, so I was not able to vote, and now I'm 21, so basically it was my first time being able to, and, yeah, kind of like the same thing Amelia said. I just felt like I was able to form enough of my own opinion to be able to voice it.
CoLoop::R Moderator
All right, well, let's go ahead and get started. So, my first question, amelia, I'll start with you on this one. Each of you is here because you said that this election, you voted for the very first time. And so I want to hear from each of you. Why did you decide to vote? Why participate in this election? So, Amelia, we'll start with you first.
CoLoop::P Amelia
St sure. So, the last election, I was 19, so I was able to vote, but I didn't feel that I was educated enough on who to vote for to make a correct decision, and I didn't want to follow through with that. Now, this election, I'm a little bit older, and I think I have formed enough of an opinion to feel confident in my vote.
CoLoop::R Moderator
Great. How about Dylan C. You say you voted for the first time in this election. Tell me a little bit about why you decided to participate this time.
CoLoop::P Dylan C.
Yeah, so last election, I was 17, so I was not able to vote, and now I'm 21, so basically it was my first time being able to, and, yeah, kind of like the same thing Amelia said. I just felt like I was able to form enough of my own opinion to be able to voice it.
Using Find and Replace
You can open DOCX transcripts in Word and use the find and replace feature to edit them quickly (details here) 
