You can use the Live Captions feature to turn the audio to text while watching your favorite shows and movies, or while listening to audiobooks or podcasts. However, this feature is not available on older versions of Windows, but don’t worry. Windows 10 accessibility features include the option to play the Closed Captions at the bottom of the video you’re watching, if the file is available.
How to Enable and Disable Live Captions on Windows 11
There are two ways to enable Live Captions on your Windows 11 device. No matter which one you choose, the end result will be the same, Windows will display an automatic transcription for the video or audio you’re currently playing.
Enable and Disable Live Captions From Settings App
Note: When you enable the live captions for the first time on your device, it’ll prompt you to download your preferred language files. However, at the moment only US English is available. Microsoft is currently working on adding more languages. The download is not a big one, only about 98.3Mb, and it will be done in no time.
Enable and Disable Live Captions From Action Center
It doesn’t matter which method you choose to enable or disable live captions, you can toggle them on and off just by pressing the Windows key + CTRL + L on your keyboard.
How to Personalize Live Captions
Windows 11 22h2 or newer, lets you customize the style of the live captions. This is an excellent way of making the captions easier to read. You can change the background color, text color, the size of the text, and its position on the screen. Here’s how to do it:
Caption Your Own Speech
Did you know that the Live Captions feature of Windows 11 lets you caption your own speech? Just use your microphone to do it. This is a great way of captioning live meetings, or your own podcast. However, you must make sure there’s no other audio playing on your device for this feature to work properly. Note that this feature will automatically turn off whenever you toggle the live captions off, or when you restart your device. You’ll have to manually turn it on every time you intend to use it.
How to Enable Closed Captions on Windows 10
Closed Captions are not the same as Live Captions, nor are they a substitute for this Windows 11 feature. They are detailed and time-coded subtitles, and they’ll appear at the correct time during the video you’re watching. Although not the same as Live Captions, Closed Captions are of great help when watching videos in a foreign language. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people also use them to understand better what’s being said in the movies they’re watching. You can turn on closed captions in Windows 10 by following these steps: If a closed caption file is not available for the video you’re watching, you should receive a pop-up message notifying you there are no closed captions to be displayed.
How to Customize Closed Captions on Windows 10
You can customize how your Windows 10 device is displaying closed captions:
If you’re not satisfied with your choices, simply select Default for the drop-down menu for each category, and the captions will return to their original Windows 10 style.
Live Caption is an impressive feature that can provide audio-to-text convenience for users everywhere. It empowers users to hear what’s being said in newscasts, lectures, narrated video clips, and all other audio sources.
Also, it removes communication boundaries for learners of any language, aiding them to understand different dialects easier. So forget about expensive software or stressful troubleshooting – now you can use live captioning right inside Windows as if it were just another ordinary program.
