Using Live Captions

Dan Sayle
Dan Sayle
  • Updated

Zoom now provides live closed captions and transcripts for all paid accounts. To make
closed captions available you must first enable them for your account in the Zoom web
portal. Then for each meeting you need to activate them at the start of your meeting.

Once closed captions have been enabled then any participants can choose to view the
captioning as required (by choosing that option in the ribbon at the bottom of the screen).
Only participants who choose this option will see the captions.

Initial enabling of closed captions in your account

Follow these steps to enable closed captions and live transcripts on your Zoom account.

  1. Sign into the Zoom web portal (www.zoom.us).
  2. In the navigation panel, click on Settings.
  3. Click In Meeting (Advanced).
  4. Verify that Closed Captioning is enabled.
  5. Verify that Enable live transcription service to show transcript on the side panel
    in-meeting is selected.
  6. Verify that Save Captions to allow participants to save fully closed captions or
    transcripts is enabled.

Start the captions in a meeting as the host

This needs to be done at start of each meeting to allow participants to turn on closed captions.

  1. Click on the Live Transcript icon at the bottom of the call window.
  2. Select Enable Auto-Transcription. Please note that the closed captions are not
    automatically started.

View the closed captions as a participant

To view the closed captions in a meeting as a participant simply select the Live Transcript
icon at the bottom of the call window to display them. A full transcript of the meeting can also be displayed by selecting the View Full Transcript option.

Further information can be found at the captioning and live transcription section within the
Zoom Help Centre.