Add Closed Captions to Your Videos

Adding captions to your videos is an excellent way to improve the accessibility of your courses. You can add or autogenerate captions in your native language to make your content accessible to students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing. You can even open up your business to new markets by adding captions in other languages!

In this article:

About This Feature

Option 1: Autogenerate Closed Captions Directly in Thinkific

Important Considerations

Option 2: Create an SRT file outside of Thinkific and upload it

Step 1: Create SRT Files

Step 2: Upload SRT Files

Manage Your Captions

Edit Caption Files

Download Caption Files

Delete Caption Files

Troubleshooting

Admin Troubleshooting

Student Troubleshooting

Frequently Asked Questions

About This Feature

Thinkific's Video Library allows you to easily upload or automatically generate closed captions for the videos you upload to Thinkific! Adding closed captions to your videos has several benefits:

• Increase Accessibility
  Make your video content accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, allowing them to fully engage with your videos.
   
• Increase Comprehension
  Closed captions allow your students to better understand video content. This is especially useful for those learning a new language or those who rely on captions to understand words, accents, and pronunciations.
   
• Expand Your Market
  Adding closed captions in multiple languages allows you to reuse the same video in products targeted to different markets.

You have two options when it comes to adding closed captions to your videos:

1. Autogenerate closed captions directly in Thinkific
2. Create SRT files outside of Thinkific and upload them

Option 1: Autogenerate Closed Captions Directly in Thinkific

Easily generate closed captions for all of your videos directly in Thinkific using our AI-powered captioning tool! When this feature is enabled, all you need to do is upload your video - closed captions (as an SRT file) will be automatically generated in the language of the speaker!

To enable this feature:

1. From your Admin Dashboard, select Settings
2. Select the Learning Content tab
3. Find the AI video captions setting
4. Turn the toggle on

Once the feature is enabled, SRT files will be generated for all videos, including the existing ones. Existing captions will not be overwritten.

If you are enabling the feature for the first time, it might take some time for all videos to process and closed captions to generate. 

After the feature is enabled and you upload a new video, the captions will be generated shortly after the video finishes processing. If the captions are not generated within 24 hours, please contact our support team.

After closed captions are generated, you can edit them directly in Thinkific, download, or delete them. Learn more in the section below: Manage Your Captions.

To disable this feature:

1. From your Admin Dashboard, select Settings
2. Select the Learning Content tab
3. Find the AI video captions setting
4. Turn the toggle off

Important Considerations

• The ability to autogenerate closed captions is available for customers on Plus Silver plan and higher. If you're already a Plus customer, reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager to learn more. Curious, but not yet on Plus? Discover how Plus can supercharge your business growth.
• Closed captions will not be generated if a video does not contain any audio.
• If an existing closed captions (.SRT) file already exists, it will not be replaced.
• Only one closed caption file will be generated, in the language of the speaker in the video. If you need to upload captions in other languages, you can follow the steps below to upload them manually.
• When the feature is disabled, no new captions will be generated going forward, however, the already generated captions are not removed. You will need to remove them manually by following these steps.
• If the feature is enabled and you delete closed captions, they will be automatically regenerated. If you would like to delete captions, disable the feature first.

Option 2: Create an SRT file outside of Thinkific and upload it

Another option available on all plans is to generate closed captions outside of Thinkific and upload them individually to each video. Follow the instructions below on how to create and upload closed captions.

Step 1: Create SRT Files

First, you'll need to have your subtitles in an SRT file format. You can create these files yourself (please follow Wistia's instructions for this to ensure that the file's formatting is correct). Or save time and do it through third-party software or hire an experienced freelancer to do it for you (e.g. via Upwork).

Here's an example of an SRT file, to give you an idea of the formatting you're looking for.

1
00:00:23,983 --> 00:00:28,033
Hello, and welcome to the first video lecture

2
00:00:28,033 --> 00:00:31,033
on the topic of cooking and baking.

3
00:00:31,033 --> 00:00:34,033
In today's lesson, we will cover basics, such as

Step 2: Upload SRT Files

Once you have your SRT files, you can add them to your videos:

1. From your Admin Dashboard, select Products
2. Under Courses, select Video Library
3. Find a video you want to add captions to or upload your video by following these instructions: Video Library: Upload and Manage Videos
4. Select the video name or click on three dots and click Edit
5. Navigate to the Captions tab
6. Click Upload
7. Follow the onscreen instructions to select the correct SRT file(s), then hit Upload
8. Select the language captions are in from the drop-down list. The language you choose will be displayed to the user when selecting to switch on the captions.
9. Select Save
10. Optional: toggle the Auto-show captions. When enabled, the captions will be displayed by default. The system will try to match the user's browser language (e.g. it will automatically display Italian captions if it Italian subtitles are added to the video and it can detect the student's browser language as Italian.)

You can upload multiple SRT files to the same video, meaning that you can add captions in as many languages as you like! 

Your captions will now be available as an option when the student selects the CC icon on the video player to switch on subtitles.

Manage Your Captions

Now that you have closed caption files added to your video, you update, download, or remove them.

Edit Your Captions

Found a typo in your captions? You can edit your captions directly in Thinkific!

To edit your captions:

1. From your Admin Dashboard, select Products
2. Under Courses, select Video Library
3. Find the video you want to edit captions for and select the video name or click on three dots and click Edit
4. Navigate to the Captions tab
5. Click Edit next to the closed caption file you want to edit
6. You will be brought to the transcript editor
7. Optional. Play the video - part of the transcript that will appear as a caption during the part that plays will appear in blue, so you can make edits as you follow along
8. Make necessary edits
9. Click Save
10. If you want to make additional changes, click Edit Transcript

Note that the editor does not allow you to edit the timing of closed captions or how they are presented. If you would like to change the closed captions timing, download the captions by following the instructions below and edit them manually.

Download Caption Files

You can download SRT files that were generated or previously uploaded to Thinkific. This option allows you to make edits to your existing files and reupload them.

1. From your Admin Dashboard, select Products
2. Under Courses, select Video Library
3. Find the video you want to edit captions for and select the video name or click on three dots and click Edit
4. Navigate to the Captions tab
5. Click on three dots next to the closed caption file you want to download
6. Select Download

Delete Caption Files

You can also delete caption files that are no longer If you don't want to keep an old closed caption file, you can delete it. This will ensure that this file no longer shows up as an option for your video viewers. Click on the three dots you see next to the Download option and you'll see the option to delete appear.

If the autocaptioning feature is enabled and you delete closed captions, they will be automatically regenerated. If you would like to delete captions, disable the feature first.

1. From your Admin Dashboard, select Products
2. Under Courses, select Video Library
3. Find the video you want to edit captions for and select the video name or click on three dots and click Edit
4. Navigate to the Captions tab
5. Click on three dots next to the closed caption file you want to delete
6. Select Delete

Please note that the action of deletion of SRT files is permanent and irreversible. We are not able to recover deleted files. We recommend downloading caption files before deleting them.

Troubleshooting

Admin Troubleshooting

If you have any errors when uploading your SRT file, try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Remove any spaces included in the file name
• Confirm there are spaces before and after the arrows that separate the caption timecodes (and add them in if they're missing)
• Remove any HTML text formatting; caption files should be in plain text with no styling
• Confirm the timecodes start at 00:00:00:00 (some captioning programs use timecodes that start at 01:00:00:00 by default)

If the issue continues, please reach out to the Support Team with your SRT file attached as well as the name of the video you are uploading to.

Student Troubleshooting

If your students are having trouble viewing closed captioning on their devices, you can suggest the troubleshooting steps below:

• Our general browser troubleshooting steps are a great place to start
• Make sure devices meet the system requirements and supported browsers
• For mobile devices, test viewing the video as minimized and maximized (fullscreen) in the Thinkific Course Player; some mobile devices hide closed captioning when videos are maximized

Frequently Asked Questions