Zoom: Live Captions

Question: Does Zoom have a ‘live’ captioning feature?

• I would like live captioning in my Zoom meeting.

Answer: Zoom now has a ‘live’ captioning and transcription feature that can be enabled/disabled by the meeting host. 

• Besides being an essential aspect of Universal Design for Learning, this feature is also a way of being proactive in equity and accessibility.
• The captions and transcript are machine-based.
• Captions are saved as a VTT file.  Transcripts are saved as a TXT file.
• Users can see both the captions and transcript when viewing your Zoom recording.

Note: If you receive student accommodations for Zoom meetings/labs/lectures/etc where professional captioning services are requested, machine-based captions are not 100% ADA compliant.  These situations require human captioning.  For student accommodations help, contact the Office for Students with Disabilities.

Enable Auto-Captions/Transcription in Zoom

1. In your meeting, click the Live Transcript button. 
2. Click Enable Auto-Transcription.  To Disable Auto-Transcription, click the Live Transcript button again.

3. Once you Enable Auto-Transcription, three options appear.  Participants see these same three options.  These options are participant-specific.
   1. Hide Subtitle:  Show/Hide Subtitles from your view.
   2. View Full Transcript:  Open the Transcript panel.  As someone speaks, the captions appear at the bottom of the screen and in the Transcript panel to the right.
   3. Subtitle Settings:  Set your closed caption font size.

• For more information on closed captioning see Zoom: View Closed Captions and Captioning Resources