I have a training video done in QuickTime and a text transcript that I need to include so the video has subtitles to match the audio. I could do it by hand with Final Cut but that seems tedious. Is there a way to merge these automatically?

There is a utility called Submerge, available at a Swedish Website called Bitfield that will merge subtitle files into movies. Submerge is available under a shareware license. A single-copy license costs $9. The most difficult part of using Submerge to place your transcript into the movie as subtitles will be converting the transcript file into the proper subtitle format. The SRT format is a simple text file format suitable for using with the Submerge program. SRT files can be created with almost any text editor. The format is described on Wikipedia as consisting of four fields, each on a separate line, for each subtitle. The first field is the subtitle number, the second identifies the start and stop time for displaying the subtitle, the third is the text, and a blank line is the fourth field, which marks the end of the entry. Your transcript needs to be converted into a text file containing subtitle entries that look like
1
00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:18,200
This is the first subtitle, which is displayed starting at 10 seconds and ending at 18 and 200 milliseconds.

2
00:00:30,000 --> 00:01:00,00
This is the second subtitle and will be displayed from the 30-second mark until the one-minute point in the video. Don’t forget the blank line after the last subtitle.

Once the transcript is in SRT format, you simply open your movie with Submerge, choose the subtitle file using the large Choose icon on the left of the Submerge menu bar, wait for the program to render the subtitles and then save the movie. Now you have a self-contained QuickTime movie with embedded subtitles.