Getting Started With Automated Captions in Zoom

Overview

Automated captions use automatic speech recognition (ASR) to caption Zoom meetings/webinars in real time. This document provides information regarding automated captions during meetings/webinars.

Notes:

• Automated captions support several languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, and more.
• The accuracy of the feature depends on multiple factors, including background noise, volume, speaker clarity, and the speaker’s lexicon/dialect.
• This feature does not automatically generate captions in Zoom cloud or local recordings. Captions only appear during the meeting/webinar as a live accessibility tool.
  • Hosts who want captions to appear in the cloud recording should ensure that audio transcription is enabled in their account settings.
  • Hosts who want captions to download with their local recording should ensure that the Save closed caption as a VTT file setting under “Record to computer files” is enabled in their account settings.
• Automated captioning is not the same as a meeting transcript. One is a live accessibility tool, while the other is the saved speech-to-text record of the meeting. Learn more about meeting transcripts.

Enable Automated Captions

As the meeting/webinar host

For all meetings/webinars you host

1. Go to your U-M Zoom account settings.
2. Click the Meeting tab and then click In Meeting (Advanced) to the left.
3. Toggle Automated captions on.

By default, when the host enables automated captions, any meeting or webinar participant/attendee can enable captions and set the speaking language for everyone in the meeting/webinar. If you, as the host, do not want to allow other participants to change the speaking language for everyone, you will need to adjust this in your Zoom account settings. Under the same "Automated captions" setting:

1. Select Allow only the following users to enable captions for the meeting or webinar.
2. Check the Host or Host + Co-host box and click Save.

Tip: If you don't want to enable automated captions for every meeting/webinar you host but still allow participants/attendees to request them during meetings/webinars, check the Allow only the following users to enable captions for the meeting or webinar box in this section, choose either Host or Host + Co-host, and click Save. Participants/attendees can't request their enablement if this setting isn't selected.

During a meeting/webinar

1. Click Show captions from the Zoom toolbar at the bottom of the screen. (It may be hidden under the More menu.)
2. Select a language for the captions and click Save.

The steps above refer to turning on captions in a specific language for everyone to view during the meeting/webinar.

Important: If you, as the host, have automated captions turned off at the account level, you cannot enable them within a specific meeting/webinar. You will need to enable them at the account level first.

As a participant/attendee

If the host has enabled automated captions, you can choose how to view them. You can also request that the host enable automated captions if they have not already been turned on, and the host allows caption requests. (If the host has turned off your ability to make a request, you should contact the host by direct message via in-meeting chat or another external communication platform.)

You will have two caption options after clicking the caret (^) icon on the Show captions button in the toolbar:

• Caption language: Choose which language to use for the captions (if allowed by the host).
  • Hosts can restrict the languages allowed for captions in their account settings.
  • Ensure the correct language is selected during your meeting. If someone is speaking in language A but Zoom expects language B, the generated captions will be inaccurate.
  • The caption language also affects the meeting transcript.
• Caption settings: Opens the Accessibility settings for your desktop app, where you can adjust the font size, color, type, and position of the captions.

Automatically show captions when available

If you want captions to display automatically when joining a meeting/webinar, you can adjust your Zoom desktop app's accessibility settings.

1. Open the Zoom desktop app.
2. Click your profile picture and select Settings from the drop-down menu.
3. Click Accessibility.
4. Check the Always show captions in meetings and webinars box under the "Closed captioning" section.

Note: If the host has automated captions turned off, this setting will not work for that meeting/webinar.

Tips for Using Automated Captions

• Use an external microphone: A separate microphone (not built into your laptop) can significantly improve audio quality.
• Speak slowly: Speaking slowly enables a more accurate match between the transcript and the spoken content, and helps others follow the captions.
• Take turns/pause before speaking: Zoom's active speaker tracking identifies the speaker. When another person begins speaking, it may take a second for Zoom to update the captions to identify the new speaker.

If automated captions aren't a good fit, refer to Videoconferencing Captioning Tools for Zoom for more information about other Zoom tools to determine which works best for your specific situation.