Closed Captions, Transcription, and Interpretation

Closed Captions and Auto-Transcription

Zoom has a variety of options for creating closed captioning in your meetings and webinars, which provides subtitles of the spoken in-meeting communications. This may be used for participants to more easily follow the conversations, or to meet accessibility requirements. During a meeting, you have the option to assign a participant to manually type captions, or you can enable Zoom’s AI-powered live transcription.

Note: Live transcription currently only supports English and the accuracy of the transcription depends on many variables, such as background noise and volume and clarity of the speaker’s voice.

Starting manual closed captioning or live transcription in a meeting

In a Zoom meeting or webinar that you are hosting, click Live Transcript .
Choose one of these options:

Assign a participant to type: Opens the participants window. Hover over the participant's name and click More then Assign to Type Closed Caption.
I will type: Opens the closed captioning window for you to manually type closed captions.
Copy the API token: Copy the URL that you can provide to a third-party closed captioning service to integrate the service with your meeting.
Enable Auto-Transcription: Allows the system to start providing live transcription. Participants will be notified that this service is available.

Entering closed captions as a participant

Once the host assigns you the ability to type closed captions, a notification will appear in your meeting controls.
Click Closed Caption . This will open up the closed caption box.
Type the caption in the box and press Enter to submit it.

Using closed captioning in breakout rooms

If you want a participant to type closed captions, make sure you assign them permission to type closed caption before starting the breakout room sessions.
After you start breakout room sessions, participants can click Closed Caption in the meeting controls to view closed captions.
Only one participant can be assigned to type closed captions in a meeting, thus it is only possible to have one breakout session with closed captioning.
Live transcription is currently not supported in breakout rooms.

Viewing closed captioning or live transcription

If closed captioning or live transcripts are available during a meeting or webinar, you can view these as a participant.

When enabled by the host, you will see a notification above Closed Caption/Live Transcript in the meeting controls, informing you that one of these services is available.
If closed captioning is available, click Closed Caption to start viewing closed captioning.
If live transcription is available, click Live Transcript , and then select Show Subtitle.

Note: The provided subtitles can be clicked and dragged to move their position in the meeting window.

To adjust the caption size:

Click the up ^ next to Start Video / Stop Video.
Click Video Settings then Accessibility.
Move the slider to adjust the caption size.

Language Interpretation

Users that would like to include interpreters in their meetings or webinars now have the ability to enable language interpretation. This allows the host to designate up to 20 participants as interpreters through the web portal or during a Zoom session.

When the meeting or webinar starts, the host can start the interpretation feature, which will allow the interpreters to provide their own audio channels for the language they are translating to. Attendees can then select the audio channel to hear the translated audio in their language of choice, as well as the option to mute the original audio instead of hearing it in a lower volume with their chosen language.

Cloud recordings of interpretation sessions will only record the original audio of the meeting or webinar, not the translations. Local recordings of interpretation sessions will record any audio the person recording can hear, but not multiple audio channels.

Requirements: You must be using a Fuller Faculty & Staff Account, and your Zoom app must be at least version 5.2.1 or higher (click here for how to update).

Adding language interpreters to meetings or webinars

Go to meetings in your zoom account (zoom.us/meeting), then click Schedule a Meeting.
Schedule your meeting as normal, but note that you cannot choose to use your Personal Meeting ID.
Next to Interpretation, select the Enable language interpretation check box.
Enter the information for your interpreters. The languages you select for interpreters will create audio channels for those languages in your meeting, but not all of these channels have to be used in the meeting.
Note: the pre-assigned interpreters must be signed-in to the account associated with the chosen email address. If they are not signed-in with that email address when joining the meeting or webinar, they will not be recognized as an interpreter; the host however can manually assign them to be the interpreter within the meeting. Interpreters do not need to have a Fuller Zoom account.
To modify the list of interpreters, click Edit. You can add additional interpreters, resend email invitations, copy email invitations, and remove interpreters.
Click Save when you are finished.

Note: This process is similar to enabling language interpretation for webinars. Navigate to Webinars and click Schedule a Webinar, then follow steps 3-6.

Starting language interpretation in a meeting or webinar

Note: Language interpretation cannot be initiated or managed when using the Zoom mobile app. Participants joining from the Zoom mobile app can only listen to interpretation audio channels and view interpreted text.

Sign in to the Zoom desktop client.
Once your meeting has started, click Interpretation in the meeting controls.
You can add or remove interpreters from the Language Interpretation menu if necessary. Click Start to begin the interpretation sessions.
After the host clicks Start, the interpreters will receive a message they have been assigned a language.

Note: The pre-assigned interpreters must be signed-in to the account associated with the chosen email address. If they are not signed-in with that email address when joining the session, they will not be recognized as an interpreter; the host however can manually assign them to be the interpreter within the meeting.
Interpreters and attendees can now click Interpretation in the meeting controls and select a language channel.
An interpreter in the channel will hear the original meeting audio which they can translate. Interpreters only have access to the language channel they have been assigned to. Participants in a language channel will hear the translated audio and also the original audio at a lower volume.
To end the interpretation session, the host must click Interpretation in the meeting controls.
Once the Language Interpretation window opens, the host can click End to stop the sessions.
The host can also click Manage Language Interpretation to make changes to the interpreter settings during a session.

Acting as language interpreter

As a language interpreter, you can only broadcast to one language channel at a time. This eliminates unnecessary language crossover and helps to reduce confusion. You can switch between the native-audio channel of the meeting and the interpretation-audio channel you have been assigned to.

Note: You can only join language interpretation from computer audio. You cannot use the dial-in or call me phone audio features.

Once a meeting host assigns you as a language interpreter, a window will pop up notifying you which language you are responsible for. Click OK to accept the language you have been assigned to interpret to.

To switch between audio channels during the meeting:

Click the language of the audio channel you want to broadcast to.
Speak in the language of the audio channel you are broadcasting to.

Listening to language interpretation

In your meeting/webinar controls, click Interpretation.
Click the language that you would like to hear.
(Optional) To hear the interpreted language only, click Mute Original Audio.

Notes:

You must join the meeting audio through your computer audio/VoIP. You cannot listen to language interpretation if you use the dial-in or call me phone audio features.
As a participant joining a language channel, you can broadcast back into the main audio channel if you unmute your audio and speak.