Managing automated captions as the host of a meeting or webinar

Zoom has a variety of options for creating virtual closed captioning in your Zoom meetings and webinars that provide subtitles for video conferencing. With the automated captions feature, captions are generated in real time to offer a more accessible and flexible virtual communication experience for all participants. 

Learn more about viewing captions as a meeting participant or webinar attendee.

Requirements for managing automated captions

• Zoom desktop app for Windows, macOS, or Linux: Global minimum version or higher
• Zoom mobile app for Android or iOS: Global minimum version or higher
• Automated captions enabled

Limitations of real-time transcriptions

• The accuracy of the automated captions depends on many variables, such as but not limited to background noise, volume and clarity of the speaker’s voice, and lexicons and dialects specific to geography or community. Because of these limitations, if you are required to use speech-to-text support for any compliance or accessibility needs in your meetings and webinars, we recommend using a manual captioner or service that may be able to guarantee a specific accuracy.
• If manual captioning is enabled for the session, you can't use automated captions in the meeting/webinar or breakout rooms.

How to start automated captions

By default, captions can be enabled and viewed by any participant in the meeting. When using automated captions, English is the default language, but you can select other languages. This tells the system which language it will hear you speak in and generates captions in that language. If speaking in language A, but Zoom is expecting language B, the generated captions will be inaccurate.

1. Start or join a Zoom meeting or webinar.
2. In the meeting controls toolbar, click the Show captions icon .
   Captions will automatically generate.
3. (Optional) Next to the captions icon , click the up arrow icon , then click the Enable translation toggle and choose which language you want captions to be translated in. This feature is only available on select accounts. Learn more about translated captions.
4. Click Save.

Notes:

• The availability of languages is determined by the host's automated caption settings.
• The speaking language choice is set by each participant individually and is remembered for future meetings.

How to approve or decline requests to turn on automated captions

If the Allow only the following users to enable captions for the meeting sub-setting is enabled to only allow the host or co-host to enable captions and the host hasn’t disabled captions for everyone, then participants can request that captions be enabled for the current meeting. The host and potentially co-hosts, depending on settings, will need to approve a request for captions to be available for all participants for the rest of the current meeting.

If the host has restricted who can enable captions in a meeting, participants will need to request captions be enabled for the current meeting. The host and potentially co-hosts as well, depending on settings, will need to approve a request for captions to be available for all participants for the rest of the current meeting.

1. Start or join a Zoom meeting or webinar as the host. 
   If a participant requests captions, a window will appear, explaining the request.
2. Click Enable to allow captions in the meeting, or click Decline to continue the meeting without the use of captions.

How to view the full transcript

You can view a full transcription of your meeting or webinar.

1. In the meeting controls toolbar, next to the Show Captions icon , click the up arrow icon .
2. Under Captions and translation, click View full transcript.
   The Transcript panel will appear, displaying the session's full transcript.
3. (Optional) At the top of the Transcript panel, use the search bar to search through the transcript.
4. (Optional) At the bottom of the Transcript panel, click Save transcript to download a .TXT file of the full transcript.
5. (Optional) To hide the full transcript, in the top-right corner of the Transcript panel, click the X icon to close the window.

How to disable captions for everyone

1. In the meeting controls toolbar, next to the Show Captions icon , click the up arrow icon .
2. Under the Host controls, click Host caption control settings.
3. In the pop-up window, click the Allow closed captioning for this meeting toggle to disable captions.
   Automated captions will end for all participants.