DIY: Editing Captions in Video Platforms

DIY captions can be a great approach for making a video accessible. Following the best practices below, you can easily caption your own videos on YouTube, Panopto, or other commonly used video hosting platforms. 

Harvard's Digital Accessibility Policy states that all videos posted to University Websites and platforms must include synchronized accurate closed captions. 

If you are looking for professional vendor captions, see our preferred vendor guidance. 

When editing your own captions, the steps are to: 

  • generate auto-captions
  • review for errors
  • edit to follow best practices
  • update or save on the video platform

Guidance by Platform

Best Practices for Writing Captions

Identify Speakers

  • Indicate who is speaking each time the speaker changes. 

  • Use italics for voice-over narration or off-screen speech

  • For non-visible non-named speakers, such as a presenter or narrator, use [NARRATOR] or [PRESENTER] or [SPEAKER]

Example

[NARRATOR] It had been a long winter in Sleepy Hollow, a village in the dark woods of New York. 

[KATRINA VAN TASSEL] Oh, it's all been so dull lately. I hope something interesting happens in my life soon. 

Non-Speech Sounds

Caption relevant not speech sounds. It is recommended to use italics for these. 

  • laughing, coughing, burping
  • doorbell, birds chirping
  • thunder, traffic noise
  • vocal intonations - yelling, crying, whispering

 

Example

[A KNOCK AT THE DOOR]

[SARAH] Who do you think it is?

[TIM] Shhh...Don't make any noise. 

[KNOCKING LOUDER]

[SARAH SNEEZES]

Caption Music

  • Use musical notes at the start and end of each caption line.

  • For background or unknown music - aim to identify the style, such as pop, jazz, rock etc.
  • For known music - identify the song at the start and caption the lyrics.
  • Create a gap between repeated lyrics to visually indicate repetition

Example

Known song:

[Bob Dylan singing "Tangled Up in Blue"] 

♪ Early one morning the sun was shining...♪

 

Background music:

♪ Jazz music plays softly ♪

Accuracy

Auto-generated captions require manual review for spelling, grammar and timing adjustments to ensure accuracy and readability. 

  • Edit captions to match dialogue and meaningful sounds

  • Ensure captions appear at the right time with audio
  • Don’t correct speech errors - like a stutter or misused word
  • If a word or phrase can’t be identified, it is common to use [INAUDIBLE]

Example

[BECKY] I think that, maybe, uh, in this particular event, um, it's important to keep all of our [INAUDIBLE] work in [INAUDIBLE].

How to Edit Captions in YouTube

Follow the step-by-step guidance below. Further guidance is also available direct from YouTube - Edit Captions

Navigate to Video Details

Open the video you would like to edit.

Open Subtitles

On the Video Details page, navigate down the list of menu options to Subtitles.

Choose Language Channel to Edit

Choose the English (automatic captions) channel. Note: the pencil icon for editing appears in the Subtitles column when hovering with a mouse or tabbing with a keyboard.

Edit Captions 

A dialogue will open with the caption editor. Captions may be edited as a paragraph of text or with the timings. Using Edit timings allows you to see the lines of text as they would appear as lines of captions overlaid the video.

If you select the text box it will jump to that part of the video. Edit and correct text errors or caption adjustments that you encounter.

Publish 

When you are satisfied with the caption change, select Publish. Your captions have been published!

Demo Video - YouTube Caption Editing

How to Edit Captions in Panopto

Follow the step-by-step guidance below. Further guidance is also available direct from Panopto - Edit Captions.

Navigate to Video

Open the video you would like to edit.

Open Video Editor

This will bring up all editing options

Select Captions

This will display caption text boxes and timings.

Edit Captions 

Select the text box you would like to modify. Update captions for accuracy.

Apply and Close Editor

When you are content with the changes. Select Apply Changes and close the video editor. 

Demo Video - Panopto Caption Editing

Resources