Viewing captions in another language

Zoom translated captions enable users to have the speech in a meeting or webinar automatically translated in real-time to captions in another language. For example, if the speaker is speaking English in a meeting, captions can be made available in Spanish, Chinese, Ukrainian, and more.

Available caption languages are determined by the host in web settings before the live session, but participants can freely enable captions and select the language they want to use for translation without the need of the host.

This article covers:

Prerequisites for viewing translated captions

*Note: Translated captioning requires the host to be a member of a Zoom One Business Plus account, a Zoom One Enterprise Plus account, or assigned the Zoom Translated Captions add-on. 

How to view translated captions

Enable captions in a meeting or webinar

Any participant in the meeting can self-enable captions, as they are no longer dependent on the host to enable.

  1. Join a Zoom meeting.
  2. Click the Show Captions button .
    Captions will appear above the controls toolbar. By default, English is set as the speaking language the captions are generated in.

Note: Users can also have the Zoom desktop app automatically show captions, when available in the meeting or webinar. This requires version 5.14.0 or higher. 

Change the speaking language for captions

If the speaker is presenting in another language, that speaker can change the language the captions are generated from.

By default, English is set as the speaking language the captions are generated from. If you are presenting in another language, for example French, you can change input language so that captions are generated accurately in French.

  1. Next to the Show Captions button, click the up caret button .
  2. Click the Caption language: English menu and select the appropriate language the captions should be generated from.
    Once selected, captions will be generated based on the language chosen.

Notes:

Translate captions into another language

If the speaker is presenting in another language and you want the captions to be generated into your language, Zoom can translate the captions into your preferred language. This is done in real-time during the meeting, and can be set by each individual participant.

Language pairs (the input speaking language and the output caption language) available to participants are determined by the host’s settings.

  1. Next to the Show Captions button, click the up caret button .
  2. Under Captions and translation, enable Translation, and select the language you want the captions translated to.
    Next to the Show Caption button, click the up caret button   . Under Captions and translation, select My caption language to see more available languages.
    Once a different language is chosen, the captions will be generated and translated into that language for you. Other participants can choose a language for their captions independently of your chosen language.

Note: Choice of Translate to language will be saved and applied to future meetings.

View full transcript

You can view a full transcription of your meeting or webinar if live transcription is enabled. 

  1. In the meeting controls, next to the Show Captions button, click the up caret button .
  2. Under Captions and translation, click View Full Transcript. 
    The Transcript panel will appear, displaying the meeting's/webinar's full transcript.
  3. (Optional) In the Transcript panel, click the Pop out icon to detach the transcript panel on a separate window. Click the Pop in icon to attach the transcript panel back to the main Zoom desktop app.
  4. (Optional) At the bottom of the Transcript panel, click Save Transcript to save a file of the full transcript.
  5. (Optional) Use the search bar to search through the transcript.
  6. (Optional) To hide the full transcript:

Adjust closed captioning size

  1. In the meeting controls, next to the Show Captions button, click the up caret button .
  2. Under Captions and translation, click Caption settings. 
    The Accessibility desktop app settings window will appear.
  3. Under Closed captioning, move the slider to adjust the caption font size slider.png.

Supported languages for translated captions

The following languages are supported for translated captions and can be translated between most* of the listed languages:

*Note: Dialects of one another are not currently supported for translation, such as translating between French (France) and French (Canada). 

The following languages are supported when translating from one of the fully supported languages above, but cannot be the source language, as they are not yet supported for automated captions: