Scheduling a meeting or webinar with sign language interpretation

When Sign Language interpretation view is enabled, hosts can designate up to 20 users as sign language interpreters either when scheduling a meeting or webinar or during the session. 

When the meeting or webinar starts, the host must start the interpretation feature, which allows the sign language interpreters to provide their own video channels for the language they are interpreting. Participants can then select the video channel to view the sign language interpretation for an available sign language, and resize or relocate the video window as needed.

This article contains: 

Prerequisites for scheduling with sign language interpretation

Limitations of the Sign Language interpretation view feature

How to schedule a meeting or webinar with sign language interpreters

You can schedule meetings with Sign language interpretation view from the Zoom desktop client. If you want to schedule a webinar, use the Zoom web portal method.

  1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop client.
  2. On the Home tab, click Schedule .
  3. Under Meeting ID, select Generate Automatically. This setting is required for sign language interpretation.
  4. Under Interpretation, select the check box next to Select sign language interpretation (video channels) below.
    Notes:
    • If you previously selected the Enable sign language interpretation view by default in scheduler check box when enabling the feature, sign language interpretation will already be selected.
    • If you don’t select this check box, you cannot add interpreters before or during the session.
  5. (Optional) Enter the information for your interpreters. If you don't enter email addresses in this step, you can still assign users as sign language interpreters during the meeting or webinar.
    The sign languages you select for interpreters will create video channels for each of those languages in your meeting, but not all of these channels have to be used in the meeting.
    Notes:
    • 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 sign interpreters; however, the host can still manually assign them as interpreters in the meeting or webinar.
    • You cannot assign the same email address to be both a language interpreter (audio) and a sign language interpreter (video).
  6. Click Save.
    Once scheduled, each interpreter will receive an email invitation for the meeting or webinar indicating which language they will interpret.

Android | iOS

You can schedule meetings with sign language interpretation from the Zoom mobile app, but you can't assign interpreters when scheduling on mobile. Instead, you must assign them through the web portal prior to the meeting, or during the meeting when joined through the Zoom desktop client.

Note: If you want to schedule a webinar, use the Zoom web portal method.

  1. Sign in to the Zoom mobile app.
  2. Tap Schedule.
  3. Enter your meeting details as needed. 
  4. At the bottom of the Schedule Meeting page, tap Advanced Options.
  5. Tap the toggle next to Sign Language Interpretation to add it to the meeting.

Web portal

Scheduling a meeting or webinar with sign language (video channel) interpreters is similar to scheduling with language interpretation (audio channel).

Note: If you want to add Sign language interpretation view to a webinar, you must use this method. You can't schedule webinars from the Zoom desktop client or mobile app.

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. In the navigation menu, click Meetings or Webinars.
  3. Click Schedule a Meeting or Schedule a Webinar.
  4. Next to Meeting/Webinar ID, select Generate Automatically. This setting is required for sign language interpretation.
  5. Next to Interpretation, select the check box for sign language interpretation.
    Notes:
    • If you previously selected the Enable sign language interpretation view by default in scheduler check box when enabling the feature, sign language interpretation will already be selected.
    • If you don’t select this check box, you cannot add interpreters before or during the session.
  6. (Optional) Enter the information for your interpreters. If you don’t enter email addresses in this step, you can assign users as sign language interpreters during the meeting or webinar.
    The sign languages you select for interpreters will create video channels for each of those languages in your meeting, but not all of these channels have to be used in the meeting.
    Notes:
    • 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; however, the host can still manually assign them to be the interpreter in the meeting or webinar.
    • You cannot assign the same email address to be both a language interpreter (audio) and a sign language interpreter (video).
  7. Click Save.
    Once scheduled, each interpreter will receive an email invitation for the meeting or webinar indicating which language they will interpret.

How to manage the list of interpreters before a meeting or webinar

After scheduling a meeting or webinar, you can manage the list of interpreters in the Zoom web portal. You can add more interpreters, resend email invitations, copy invitations, and remove interpreters.

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal on the same account that scheduled the meeting or webinar.
  2. In the navigation menu, click Meetings or Webinars.
  3. Click the name of the meeting or webinar you want to edit.
  4. Scroll down to the Interpreters section, then click Edit.
  5. In the Sign Language Interpreters window, do any of the following: