OpenSpeaks/3.0/Accessibility/Closed captioning

This page is about Closed captioning. See here for burned-in captioning.

Closed captions are a separate file played with the video, so you can add multiple subtitle files for viewers to choose from.

The standard option on Amara is closed captions or subtitles.

Using Closed captions (CC), the audio part is displayed on screen as text. A viewer can turn the closed captions on or off because they are a separate file. That file is played with the video file. There can be multiple subtitle files in multiple languages. A viewers can choose the language that they understand. The subtitles are typed in a standard format and saved as a standard file extension. SRT is one such popular file extension. This format is accepted on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and many other platforms. There are apps/software and online tools to create closed captioning. If you use a computer, you can use Amara, YouTube or Veed.io. Amara and YouTube are free and Veed.io is paid.

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Create subtitles using Amara on computer

After uploading your video to YouTube or other accepted platforms, you can create Closed captioning. It works well on popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Chrome. To use Amara, follow the steps below:

Upload your video to YouTube or Vimeo. Copy the URL of the video.
Go to https://amara.org/videos/create/. Click on "Begin" from the left box "Subtitle for Free on Amara Public"
It will ask you to log in. If you do not have an account on Amara, choose "Create a new account".
After creating a new account, you can log in.
Click on + Add videos. Then copy the URL of the video uploaded to YouTube/Vimeo into the "Video URL" field on Amara.
Under "Language spoken in the video" you will find a list of languages. Select the language spoken in the video. If there are multiple languages spoken, select one of them.
The video will load on the left side. You can click on "Edit/Add videos" from the right side. Select the language under the field "Add new subtitles". Click on "Add".
It will load a new page. You can find the typing field in the middle of the page.
On your keyboard, press the TAB button to play and listen to the video. Type what you hear. Amara recommends less than 42 characters per line. Press enter to go to the next line.
Keep pressing the "Save Draft" button on the top right. Once completed, press "Save Draft" and choose "Exit".
A new page will load. Your subtitle will be available on the right side of the screen for downloading. Your closed captioning is now ready. You can upload the video and the subtitles together on different platforms that accept closed captioning.

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Create subtitles using Youtube on phone

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Create subtitles using Youtube on computer browser