Closed Captions Max Characters
Feb 06, 2020
By
Dave Shapiro
What is the recommend max characters per line in closed captions? Does the learner's screen size (desktop vs phone) have an effect? How about the story size (720 x 405)?
To test how the different options looked, I put together a quick file with caption boxes of different lengths (23, 32, 45, 100 characters) for the same audio (see attached). The issue is when I preview the entire project or publish it, the captions on each slide default to the 100 character length. If I preview each slide individually they use their respective caption files. What's up with this?
6 Replies
Hi Dave!
Thanks for attaching your file! I see that you have multiple caption files attached to the audio. There isn't a way to designate which caption is imported with the audio which could be why you're seeing the same output.
Can you try separating the audio with one caption file in each?
I'd love to know what others think about Dave's first question regarding the recommended number of characters per line. Different sources recommend 30-40 characters, but that is such a small snippet that you end up having to break up sentence clauses. What are others using as rules of thumb for how much text to include in a single line of captioning in Storyline?
Lauren,
Storyline will not allow me to upload the copied audio files. I copied the audio, renamed each for the length of captions associated with it, and even saved each pair (audio and .srt) in separate folders. Each time I uploaded an audio file, Storyline just used the audio that was uploaded the initial time with the associated .srt file. Is Storyline analyzing the audio, deciding that they are the same, and reusing the original to save space or something? I tried the same within the Media Library with the same result; copies of the audio are associated to a single file.
Overall this generally shouldn't be an issue apart from this test I am attempting. Recommendations for caption length based on Story Size and learner device, etc. is more important.
Hi Dave!
Thank you for these extra details! Our team has confirmed this issue is a bug so I've logged a report with your comments and file! This definitely is a wild outcome when updating the Closed Captions and having all the captions updated with the recent change.
We've seen this only happening when importing one audio file on multiple slides. In the meantime, while our team investigates this bug, I'd recommend duplicating the audio file so there is a separate file in each slide. This way each file has its own captions.
When I hear of an update, I'll report back to this discussion. Thank you so much for bringing this error to our attention!
For YouTube google recommend 45 characters per line no more than 2 lines and no more than 90 characters
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