Captions & Transcripts: Guidelines

Make Audio & Video Content Accessible

General Guidelines for Captions

Captions are required for all videos with an audio track. For pre-recorded media, follow these best practices:

Display captions in sync with the speech or sound they describe.
Use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation; include all dialogue (verbatim or summarized) and important sounds.
Keep captions on screen long enough for viewers to read comfortably.

General Guidelines for Transcripts

For audio-only content, apply the same rules as captions for which sounds and details to include.
For video content, use audio-description principles to convey essential visuals.
Provide the transcript in the same place as the original content.
Offer an accessible format (e.g., Section 508-conformant web page, plain text, or accessible Word doc).

Automatically Generated Captions

Auto-captions (e.g., in Canvas Studio) are a helpful starting point, but they often miss grammar, punctuation, spelling, and speaker IDs.

Review & Edit Auto-Captions

Fix capitalization, punctuation, and grammar.
Verify names, places, and technical terms.
Correct wrong substitutions (e.g., “weight” to “wait”).
Add missing cues for sound effects, music, and other audio elements.

Sound Effects

Include meaningful non-speech audio in captions:

Mark sounds with brackets or parentheses: [static], (doorbell).
Skip obvious, visible sounds (e.g., footsteps when walking is shown).
Indicate when ongoing background noise begins (e.g., [traffic begins], [crowd chatter]).
Describe notable qualities when helpful (e.g., [louder cheering], [overlapping barking, meowing, chirping]).
Note when ongoing sounds stop or when silence is unexpected (e.g., [engine turns off], [no audible dialogue]).

Captioning Music

When music starts, list song and artist or describe tone/style (e.g., [Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major”], [mellow techno music]).
Include lyrics when someone is visibly singing, when speech is minimal, or when lyrics matter to understanding.
Omit lyrics if there’s substantial dialogue or lyrics aren’t essential.
Indicate notable changes (e.g., [music stops abruptly], [tone shifts to ominous]).

Creating Captions in Canvas Studio

Canvas Studio lets you caption uploaded media and media linked from YouTube/Vimeo (Previous Page for instructions). With the Captions Editor you can add time-synced lines, and you can edit, download, replace, or delete the captions file. You may also upload external caption files or request auto-captions.

*Important Studio Note

As of March 25, 2024, media uploaded to Studio includes auto-generated captions by default. YouTube and Vimeo media cannot be auto captioned in Studio; upload a caption file or create captions manually.