Who we help
GistCite for researchers, students and academics
Lectures, papers, archives and interviews become a corpus you can search, summarize and cite, with the page or timestamp attached to every point.
Published · Last updated · Reviewed
What you can do with it
YouTube Transcripts
A lecture series into study notes
Playlist transcripts, summaries with chapters, and questions answered with timestamps.
How YouTube Transcripts does itOpen Library
Papers and public-domain books
Search six catalogues at once and bring the open items into the extractor.
How Open Library does itSpeech to Text
Interviews transcribed with timestamps
Whisper transcripts with word timing and a vocabulary hint for names.
How Speech to Text does itYouTube Transcripts
Notes that open in Obsidian
Download a transcript as Markdown with frontmatter and timestamps that link back to the second, in paragraphs under the video's chapters.
How YouTube Transcripts does itFeatures that fit this work
What each one does and what it costs in units.
A transcript you can click
Click any line to play that moment in the video above it; the line being spoken stays highlighted. Search inside the transcript, step through the matches, and copy a selection with a link to the second it starts.
Cost: Included with the transcript: 1 unit per fetch, nothing extra.
Open a YouTube transcriptMarkdown, Word and PDF downloads
Save a transcript as Markdown with Obsidian-ready frontmatter and linked timestamps, as Word, or as a page to print to PDF, with caption fragments merged into paragraphs. Summaries download the same three ways.
Cost: Free: downloads use no units.
Download a transcript as Markdown or WordChapters and video details
A video's own chapters show as chips that play in the page's player and become headings in the exports. The description and publish date come along too, and the API returns them as metadata.
Cost: Free.
See a video's chaptersYour caption languages, in order
Set up to five preferred caption languages in Settings (for example “fr, en”). When a video has several tracks, your first match is used before the video's default.
Cost: Free, for signed-in accounts.
Fetch a transcript in your language
The tools you will use most
- Document Extractor
Extract clean text and LLM-ready Markdown from PDF, DOCX, PPTX, XLSX, TXT, EPUB and HTML, with OCR for scans, then export in nine formats.
- YouTube Transcripts
Paste a YouTube link and get the full transcript with timestamps: click a line to play that moment, search it, and download Markdown, Word, PDF, TXT or SRT.
- Open Library
One search across Google Books, Open Library, Project Gutenberg, arXiv, OpenAlex and the Internet Archive; download what is free to keep.
- Speech to Text
Dictate live in the browser for free, or upload a recording up to 500 MB for a Whisper transcript with word timestamps and SRT export.
- AI Summary, Ask and Create
Summarize any source into an overview, key points and timestamped chapters; ask questions with citations; create posts, briefs and scripts from it.
Worked examples
Graduate student
From a twelve-lecture playlist and two textbooks to a searchable study corpus
A public lecture playlist and two public-domain textbooks become one set of transcripts, summaries and chunked JSON, ready for revision or a personal AI index.
Follow the walkthroughIndependent consultant
From a 120-page annual report to a cited two-page brief
A public annual report PDF becomes page-anchored Markdown, a set of extracted tables, answers with page citations, and an executive brief a client can verify.
Follow the walkthroughQuestions from this audience
- Is there a free plan?
- Yes: 100 units a month covers transcripts and document extraction, and downloads in every format are free; AI features need Pro, a top-up or your own AI key.
Further reading
Try it on your own material
The free plan covers transcripts, document extraction and downloads; Pro adds the AI and media tools. Failed requests are never charged.