Forum Discussion
Closed Captions when publishing as a video
I have created a presentation in Storyline which I have published as a video, but the closed captions haven't carried over. Is there a setting/option I need to enable to make this happen?
6 Replies
Depending on which app you are using to play the video, you may need to select the caption file. The captions for the video are typically white text. So, make sure your slide background is not white
Hello Ron. Thank you for responding. When I view the presentation in preview mode in Storyline the captions are white text against a black background. I am publishing to Video (mp4) and it is opening from my file explorer into Media Player. When I click on the languages and subtitles icon in the bottom right hand corner of the screen it states that subtitles are off but I can now choose a subtitle file, so I have selected the corresponding .rtt file but I don't seem to have any control about the look and positioning of these subtitles. Also, there doesn't seem to be anyway of saving these options to the .mp4 file.
Any thoughts?
I was hoping the closed captions that I'd created in Storyline would transfer over, with the same format/position.
Thanks for your help with this issue.
Debi
I had the same problem a while back. For some reason, unknown to me, selecting ZIP didn't save the vtt file (the captions file) with the video. Check if there is a .vtt file in the folder with the video.
In my case the .vtt was missing. What I did to resolve the problem was to select OPEN instead of ZIP (see below), which did the trick. As I remember the CCs played automatically, no on/off button, but this was a while back so that may have changed.Thank you for this tip, much appreciated.
Ahhh yes, this is a very common (and very confusing) Storyline moment . You didn’t miss a checkbox. It’s actually a limitation of how Storyline handles video publishing.
When you publish from Articulate Storyline 360 to Video (MP4), closed captions do NOT export as toggleable captions.
And there is no setting to enable them. Storyline only supports interactive closed captions in LMS, Web, Review 360
So, when you publish to video, Storyline essentially “records” the slide timeline as a flat MP4, which doesn’t support Storyline’s built-in CC toggle system.
To work around this, you can:
Create a manual caption layer on each slide
Add text boxes with your caption content
Synch them manually to your audio timeline
Publish the video.
(Put captions on the Slide Master to maintain consistent positioning and formatting.)
This may seem a bit of a long-winded approach, but it’s the best option you have when working in Storyline to publish an mp4.
Hope this helps.
Thank you very much for this workaround, very helpful.
As it happens in this instance, the MP4 is actually being used as a video within an Articulate Storyline deck, so the captions appear and the caption toggle system works.
I will use your workaround above though when I need them on a standalone video.
