Forum Discussion
New in Storyline 360: Customize Closed Captions
Have you ever added closed captions only to realize they're covering up important slide content? Or maybe you wanted to change the colors to fit your brand guidelines? If so, you're in luck! With two cool new features, you can now choose the color and placement of your captions. That way, you can ensure all learners can access video content without hiding essential information or compromising design.
Ready to customize your captions? In the player properties window, select Colors & Effects on the ribbon, then choose your color and placement preferences. It’s that easy! Plus, in the same window, you get a glimpse into how your captions will display to learners.
And that’s not all! We also reorganized the player properties window into two sections—player and closed captions—so selecting the options you need is easier than ever.
Articulate 360 subscribers can access these features immediately. If you don't have Articulate 360, start a free 30-day trial. Learn more about these features and closed captions in Storyline 360 by checking out these resources:
I would say it's a good start. However, many times the positioning of a closed caption location, or the color of the background can vary depending on the content of the slide. It would be a nice future optimization if closed captions can be positioned or formatted for each slide.
This is a welcome addition but I think it's still ways to go. Viewers should be able to control the appearance of captions, not just us authors.
With most players that offer captions, you, the learner/viewer can control colour, size, position, etc.
You might be fine as the author setting the caption colour to be yellow with a black background but the next user may not.
The newly added transcripts can be moved around the player by the user, so I think the same should be done with captions.
Its a good start but the captions should be positioned on a slide by slide basis. Also I would like to have the control to position the captions more precisely. I now add an extra height to a slide to keep the same slide area for content and then have the extra space at the bottom for captions. It would be good to have more control over the height positioning and the width of the captions to integrate into the slide better. Also, I would like to see the option, possibility using a built in variable to be able to show the transcript when the slide loads. Often the video player and or the timeline can be busy and overwhelming and even sighted people get confused about where to find captions etc on a player. I would like to automatically show the transcript and then give the user the option to turn it off rather than having to go look for it if they need it. Customs actions also would be useful for more control. If I want to adjust an audio file, I would also like to be able to add a transcript to perhaps giving us the control to add custom buttons to show hide video player functions would be very useful.
Hi there,
It is easy t change the font/background colour however when I change the background to white and the font colour to black the font has a shadow and a boldness to it. Definitely not ideal and I don't know how to change it. I have tried different fonts but regardless of the font I choose it has the same effect.
I am running into the same issue. The captions have this horrible drop shadow effect now. With a light background and dark font, it looks like the image Tricia loaded. With a dark background and light font, it is just as bad.
I may not even use CC until this is resolved, which is really upsetting from an accesibility standpoint.Articulate, what is the status of fixing this?
I have the same problem as Tricia. I wanted to add an additional voice and would also appreciate a solution.
Same issue here! Captions dark font on light background impaired by black outline on letters. Anyone know how to fix please? (v 3.91.33139.0)
Hi William and Scott! I'm glad to hear it's a welcome addition and a good start. These are great suggestions, and I appreciate you taking the time to let us know. I'll record this feedback and get it logged into some feature requests.
~Ronnie
Hi Ronnie,
The customization options for the closed captions in Storyline 360 represent a significant improvement, especially for enhancing accessibility. In future iterations is it possible to provide the same customization options to the learner? Meaning, the learner has the ability to adjust the color, font size, style of the closed captions, and placement of the closed captioning? This would aid in creating a more personalized and accessible learning experience.
Hi Mary!
Happy to jump in here! Thank you for sharing the feedback!
We are currently tracking a feature request that will allow learners to control the appearance of closed captions in Storyline. I've included your voice in the feature report and will update this discussion as soon as we have news to share.
If you'd like to stay up to date, please bookmark our Feature Roadmap.
Hello everyone,
I've been following this discussion with great interest. I'm currently using VTT files for closed captions in my videos, but I have two key requirements that are essential for me:
1. Multilingual Support: I need the ability to offer captions in multiple languages.
2. Automatic Captions: I want the captions to start automatically as soon as the video begins.Currently, my workflow involves creating VTT files in English, then translating them into Spanish and French separately using AI, resaving them as _es.vtt and __fr.vtt.
I duplicate the video 2 more times, each with its corresponding caption language, allowing users to select their preferred language via an icon (as the videos as lightslides). While this approach works, it's extra effort that I’d prefer to streamline.
Ideally, the features I require are:
1. A single video where viewers can choose their caption language without having to create multiple versions of the video.
2. Automatic captions that start as soon as the video plays, ensuring that users immediately have access to translations in their chosen language.Thanks in advance for any other insights, or when these cc features would be adapted (Storyline 360)
Hey Carol.
Not sure why your response is greyed out and say reported. But hopefully you get this reply. I would upload your video to Vimeo and embed it onto your Storyline slide. Vimeo let's you add multiple caption files in SRT and VTT formats. And more recently, Vimeo now supports multiple audio tracks which might be an option.
I always use Vimeo to embed long videos so that the Storyline file size remains small.
I do not have the position option in my player
Hi Sarah,
I'm sorry to hear that you're not seeing the new options under player properties. Have you updated to the latest version of Storyline 360? The new closed captions enhancements were released in Storyline 360 Update 86. Can you please try checking for updates and update to the latest version?
If you're in Storyline 360, from the ribbon, go to the Help Tab and select About Storyline. Please make sure it's showing v3.86.32080.0.I hope this helps.
~Ronnie
Good day, my story is different, I made a video on Storyline, with closed captions, but once I publish it as video and play it, the captions don't appear/display,
Please help, am i missing something?
Hi Sizwe!
Sorry to hear the closed captions are absent from your published-to-video Storyline file!
If you've confirmed the captions have been added to your audio/video tracks successfully, they should automatically be included in the published output as a VTT captions file. Do you mind sharing how you are viewing the file after it was published? On a local media player, or an online hosting service?
Also, if you're comfortable sharing the .story file you used for publishing, I'd be happy to take a closer look and test the playback on my end! Feel free to attach a copy here in the discussion or privately through a support case.
I would really like to see a multi-lingual option for CC.
So that you can choose in the beginning if you want to see the for example German or English CC.Would be really, really helpful :)
Hi Sander!
Thanks for sharing the feedback!
We are tracking a feature request for support of multiple languages with Closed Captions in Storyline! I've included you in the feature report and will update this discussion if it makes it onto our Feature Roadmap.
Have a great rest of your week!
I am 100% in agreement with Sander's request for a multi-lingual cc option. We just finished translating captions for 32 courses into three additional languages. Now, instead of 32 story files, I have 32 * 4 or 128 Storyline files to track. If a change, such as an updated image is made to one course, we need to make it in four files and rebuild four courses.
We recently started using Hippo Video as a demo video repository, and our customers are getting used to having the ability to select caption language from the drop-down settings menu. I would think this option to select caption language would be more valuable than customizing location or format of the existing, single-language captions.
