3 Ways to Closed Caption Your Training Videos

Every company should be sure to include closed captioning in their training videos. This is important for ADA compliance as well as overall accessibility. Remember that some of your learners will learn better by reading or may have trouble understanding a speaker. Having closed captioning training prevents issues with this and ensures that everyone can learn from your course. 

If you are wondering, “How do I add closed captions to my video?” we have three main suggestions.

Option #1. Use YouTube

The free answer to “How do I add closed captions to my video?” is to use YouTube. This is the only free option on our list, and YouTube makes it very easy to do. 

To make closed captioning training on YouTube, start by uploading your video. Then, go to the settings and find the closed caption transcript option. You will have to tell YouTube to transcribe your video and then wait 24 hours for them to create it. After that, you can go in and edit the transcription. It’s a simple, free process. 

Remember that this is an option even if you want to limit access to your videos. You can easily restrict a YouTube video to be private and require a link to view it. 

Option #2. Use Adobe Premier 

If you already have Adobe Suite or are thinking of getting it, then Adobe Premier is another great option. This is also our favorite video editing software for closed captioning training. For reference, just Adobe Premier costs about $25 to $30 a month, and the entire Adobe Suite is about $50 to $55 a month.

But how do you add closed captions to your video in Premier? Have your video completed and go to your timeline view. Select captions and graphics, and you’ll see a few options on the left side. One of those options lets Adobe automatically transcribe your video for you. 

Once you select that option, Adobe Premier will ask you which audio track you want to use. If you aren’t sure or don’t care, you can select all the tracks, but be sure to exclude any music tracks. 

It will create the transcript quickly, and then you can edit it. From there, you want to select “Create Closed Captioning.” Premier will lay out the closed captioning as an additional track on the timeline, cutting it up to make it easy to edit each chunk. 

Option #3. Use Rev.com or Similar Service

Rev.com is a very simple option to the question, “How do I add closed captions to my video?” The website is dedicated to the transcription and captioning services. You can choose to have the closed captioning training completed by a human or by the system. It costs about $1.25 per minute of closed captioning when done by a human or about $0.25 a minute when using the auto transcriber. Obviously, a human will deliver more accurate results. Rev.com claims an accuracy of about 80%. 

After you get the caption files from Rev.com, you will have to add them to your course. You can burn the captions onto your video, meaning they are connected to it forever. Or you can have them as a separate file, typically an SRT file. 

Conclusion

YouTube lets you add closed captions to your videos for free. If you have a budget for captioning, you can use Adobe Premier or Rev.com. Closed captioning makes your videos more accessible and ADA-compliant.