Remove filler words

Rooster finds the hesitations in a transcript and lets you hear each one before it goes. Nothing is cut until you approve it, and the whole batch comes back with a single undo.

Remove them

1. Open the list any of these ways:
   • press Fillers in the script pane's header;
   • choose Enhance > Remove filler words… in the menu bar;
   • right-click in the script and choose Remove filler words….
2. Rooster lists every filler word it found, each between the words either side. Press a row's time to play that moment.
3. Untick any you want to keep. Every row starts ticked; Select all and Select none change them all at once.
4. Under When a filler is removed, choose:
   • Close the gap, which also removes the pause leading into the filler, so speech runs on naturally; or
   • Keep the pauses, which removes the filler alone and leaves the silence either side.
5. Press Remove. The button says how many, and how much time they add up to.

Each removed filler is cut from the video like any other cut and leaves a ¦ mark in the script; fillers next to each other share one. To take the whole batch back, use Undo (⌘Z); to put one back, select its ¦ mark and press Restore.

Check before you remove: a word the transcript got wrong can look like a filler.

Which words count

Rooster looks for "um", "uh", "uhm", "erm", "er", "ah", "eh", "hm", "mm" and "hmm", ignoring capitals and punctuation. It does not treat "like", "you know", "mm-hmm" or "uh-huh" as fillers, because they are as often real words. It recognises English hesitations only.

A filler the transcript stamps with no length, or one that runs straight into the next word with no pause between, is not offered: there is no clean place to cut it, and the list says how many it left out.

When nothing is found

The list explains why. The usual reasons:

• The transcript came from an engine that leaves fillers out. Rooster's standard engine, Local Parakeet, writes them down; switch to it in Settings and transcribe again.
• The script was typed and aligned rather than transcribed, so the hesitations in the recording were never written down.
• None were said.

Long pauses

Gaps between words are a separate tool. See Shorten long pauses.