Narrated posters. Match every clip to its text.

The poster is not automatically the transcript

A research poster may have a short overview recording, an explanation attached to one figure and a separate methods clip. A visitor can open them in any order. Pasting the abstract beside all three recordings loses the details that make each explanation useful.

Polyglot helps you transcribe authorized narration locally on an Apple Silicon Mac running macOS 14.4 or later, review it beside playback and export text. Prepare a separate transcript for each actual recording. For a narrated video, you can also export reviewed SRT or WebVTT for a player that accepts it.

This guide focuses on audio attached to a digital poster. A linear research video abstract has a different handoff. Polyglot does not create the poster, read its figures, split recordings into panels or publish to a conference platform.

Give every audio entry point a matching text record

Before transcription, list the poster identifier and revision, each audio filename, its language, the visible panel heading and the text destination. Include the whole-poster introduction as its own entry. Do not identify a clip only as “the second play button”: the layout may change between desktop and mobile.

Use the final recorded files. If the overview is one continuous recording, keep it as one transcript; optional headings can help readers navigate without pretending the audio is split. If panels have separate recordings, keep their transcripts separate even when they repeat an introduction. Visitors may start at any panel.

iPosterSessions documents separate transcript entry routes for overall narration and audio inside content boxes. It accepts manually entered text and offers automatic generation at some conferences. Check the tools enabled for your event; the platform documentation does not establish a universal SRT or WebVTT upload route.

Review the spoken explanation against the poster

Import each audio file into Polyglot and transcribe it in a supported recognition language, or start from a reviewed matching subtitle file. Listen through the draft. Check names, abbreviations, units and spoken panel references. Export readable text after correcting recognition errors. The printed abstract is a reference for spelling, not a replacement for the recording.

When the speaker says “the chart on the right,” verify which figure they mean. Ask the author to resolve references that become ambiguous in a different layout. A transcript may include a clearly labeled editorial clarification, but it should not quietly turn an unspoken interpretation into a quotation. A missing explanation of a figure needs author-written description; speech recognition cannot supply it.

If the narration and poster disagree, distinguish a transcription error from an actual spoken mistake. Correct the draft when the audio was recognized incorrectly. If the audio itself names the wrong panel or result, hold the affected delivery for an author-approved recording or poster correction. Do not make the text silently contradict the audio.

This fictional review note keeps the unresolved discrepancy outside the transcript. It is a manually prepared note, not an app-generated comparison.

Fictional poster review note
Poster: P042, revision 3
Panel: Results
Audio: P042-results-r02.m4a
Text: P042-results-r02.en.txt
00:18 — “The blue line…”
Poster legend: dashed line
Action: author checks reference
Status: hold this clip + text

Keep the text faithful and the context explicit

W3C recommends reviewing automatic text for accuracy and including relevant audio information. Keep cautious wording such as “in this sample” and “may explain.” Preserve the spoken comparison, including its baseline, rather than replacing it with a stronger headline from the poster. A knowledgeable reviewer should approve technical terms and any translated version.

For another-language transcript, identify both the recording language and the text language. A translated text does not mean the audio has been dubbed. Keep a small terminology sheet across the overview and panel clips, and recheck all affected text when the approved research wording changes.

Confirm permission to process, translate and publish the narration and included material. Follow author, institution and event rules for AI use, unpublished results and access restrictions. Local processing does not grant publication rights. Media and transcript processing stay local; requested downloads, user-controlled updates, content-free analytics with an opt-out and Pro licensing have separate network boundaries.

Choose text or timed captions for the actual media

For an audio explanation, deliver readable transcript text through the platform’s intended text field or linked document. Do not paste cue numbers and subtitle timestamps into a normal reading field unless the recipient specifically wants them. Preserve paragraphs and meaningful speaker or sound information. Poster prose alone may omit information added in the narration.

W3C’s guidance for prerecorded audio describes an equivalent text alternative, with an exception for audio that is already a clearly labeled alternative to text. Check the actual relationship between your poster and narration rather than assuming that any visible text covers the recording. This workflow is not an accessibility certification.

For a video embedded in the poster, confirm its player’s caption format and language controls separately. Prepare the timed file against that exact video edit. Plain transcript text and synchronized captions serve different reading paths; neither proves that figures, visual-only demonstrations or the poster itself are accessible.

Accept the poster as a visitor would use it

After the event platform’s editor has saved the changes, open its preview or visitor view. Start at the overview, then open a panel clip directly without first playing the overview. Confirm each entry offers the correct text, and compare a distinctive opening phrase and final sentence with its audio. Check that a repeated introduction has not caused two different clips to receive the same transcript.

For iPosterSessions, the documented preview exposes the overall narration transcript and the transcript associated with a content-box audio snippet through their respective entry points. Verify the features available in your event rather than relying on another conference’s screenshots. This is a suggested acceptance procedure; no authenticated poster upload was tested for this guide.

Read the text on desktop and phone. Check accents, scientific symbols, headings and language labels after pasting or uploading. Use keyboard navigation to reach the available audio and transcript controls, and report inaccessible controls to the event platform. A successful local export does not establish visitor access.

When replacing a recording, update its matching transcript and any translated versions together. Reopen the visitor view and any downloadable text to check that the old version is no longer offered for that clip. Keep the previous source files in your own version history. Record the approved poster, audio and text revisions in the handoff; leave unresolved mismatches visibly on hold.

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