Fact · Transcription
The Whisper command-line tool writes all available output formats when no output format is specified.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“format of the output file; if not specified, all available formats will be produced”
whisper/transcribe.py: decoding defaults and command-line options (openai/whisper), OpenAI, GitHub (openai/whisper), 2026, Command-line options, --output_format.
Open the original- What it measures
- The option accepts txt, vtt, srt, tsv, json, jsonl and all. Passing srt or vtt writes only that caption format.
- What it does not show
- Checked against the source code on the main branch. The flag set can change between releases.