Mac text to time software?

March 10, 2010 10:48 AM

Is there a word processor for Mac that will estimate speech time?

Avid iNEWS does this well when I'm in the newsroom. But it is PC-only and I work on my Macbook when I'm out.

I don't need any of the other features of iNEWS. It would be nice if this were free or nearly-free.

posted by chris p to computers & internet (5 answers total)

I don't know of any software that does. You probably are familiar with virtual machines for the Mac - one option would be to run Avid iNEWS in one of those.

Another option would be to figure out how iNEWS estimates talk time and do the same kind of estimation with just something like word count and character count. I don't know how to do this, so I can't be much help!
posted by The Devil Tesla at 11:09 AM on March 10, 2010

In J-school we had a simple equation for figuring this out. I believe it was three words per second, which meant doing a word count and dividing by three for your number of seconds. Word count + calculator.
posted by Brodiggitty at 12:23 PM on March 10, 2010

This is a little brute-force, but your Mac can speak your text. Then it's just a matter of timing how long it took.
posted by Wild_Eep at 12:56 PM on March 10, 2010

In Mac OS X, you can easily turn a text file into a spoken (by the mac) audio file. Then only open the file in Quicktime and see its duration.
posted by edmz at 2:19 PM on March 10, 2010 [1 favorite]

I usually estimate 160 words per minute for a medium paced read, not sure if there is a software solution.
posted by jade east at 10:58 PM on March 10, 2010