Use live captions in Microsoft Teams meetings
In this article
Live captions in Teams
Teams can detect what’s said in a meeting and present real-time captions. If you're using the desktop app for Windows or Mac, there are also several caption customization options.
Note: People can choose not to be identified in captions. For details, see Hide your identity in meeting captions and transcripts.
Note: Teams doesn't save captions. If you'd like a transcript of the meeting, turn on transcription. You'll be able to download the transcript after the meeting.
There are a couple ways to get live captions in Teams:
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From the built-in captioning provided by Teams
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From a Communication Access Real-time Translation (CART) captioner. To learn how to use CART captions in a Microsoft Teams meeting, refer to Use CART captions in a Microsoft Teams meeting (human generated captions).
Live caption settings
Teams has built-in closed captioning you can turn on from the meeting controls.
Turn captions on and off
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To use live captions in a meeting, go to your meeting controls at the top of the screen and select More actions
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To stop using live captions, go to your meeting controls and select More actions
Change the spoken language
Set a meeting’s spoken language to the language people are speaking for more accurate captions.
If people are speaking a different language than the meeting’s set spoken language, Teams will detect the language mismatch. Then, the meeting organizer, co-organizer, transcript initiator, or initiator of the feature that turned on transcription, will be prompted to update the spoken language:
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Select Settings to update the meeting spoken language manually.
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Select Yes, change it to immediately update to the detected meeting spoken language.
The meeting organizer, co-organizer(s), transcript initiator, or initiator of any feature that turned on transcription, can access the meeting spoken language at any time.
To access the meeting spoken language settings:
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To the right of captions, select Caption settings
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In the Meeting spoken language dropdown menu, select the language everyone is speaking from the dropdown menu.
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Select Update to change.
Important: For other participants to access the meeting spoken language, transcription must be turned off. If there’s an ongoing transcription, they must first turn it off or turn off the feature that started the transcription. Then, they must manually turn transcription on again.
Set up live translated captions in an event
In town halls and live events, organizers preselect which languages attendees can see live captions in. Organizers can select six languages, or ten if they have Premium, from over 50 different languages.
To set up live translated captions in an event:
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Open the event in your Teams calendar.
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In Details, select Meeting options
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In Engagement
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Select Apply.
Attendees can see live translated captions in only one of the languages you preselected.
Use live translated captions
By default, live captions are shown in the language used during the meeting or event. Live translated captions allow users to see captions translated into the language they’re most comfortable with.
Note: Live translated captions in meetings are only available as part of Teams Premium, an add-on license that provides additional features to make Teams meetings more personalized, intelligent, and secure. To get access to Teams Premium, contact your IT admin.
To use live translated captions:
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Turn on live captions in your meeting.
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To the right of captions, select Caption settings
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Make sure Meeting spoken language is correct.
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Turn on the Translate to toggle.
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In the dropdown menu, select the language you want your captions translated to.
Customize captions
If you're using the desktop app on Windows or Mac, you can customize the font size and color, increase the number of lines displayed, and change the positioning of the captions in the meeting window.
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To the right of captions, select Caption settings
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Choose the color, position, and style you want to see your captions in.
Important: Microsoft reserves the right to restrict or place limitations on the use of Speaker Coach, with reasonable notice, in order to limit excessive use and/or fraud, and to maintain optimal service performance.
Supported languages:
English (US), English (Canada), English (India), English (UK), English (Australia), English (New Zealand), Arabic (Arab Emirates), Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Chinese (Simplified China), Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan), Czech (Czechia), Danish (Denmark), Dutch (Belgium), Dutch (Netherlands), French (Canada), French (France), Finnish (Finland), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Hebrew (Israel), Hindi (India), Hungarian (Hungary), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Norwegian (Norway), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian (Romania), Russian (Russia), Slovak (Slovakia), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish (Sweden), Thai (Thailand), Turkish (Turkey), Ukrainian (Ukraine), Vietnamese (Vietnam), Welsh (Wales)
Supported translation languages:
Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French (Canada), German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese
Get the most out of your captions
To make sure your live captions are as accurate as possible, try these best practices:
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Speak clearly, slowly, and directly into the mic. As your distance from the mic increases, captions may become less accurate.
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Avoid locations with background noise.
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Avoid having multiple people speak at the same time.
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Use the highest-quality Teams-certified equipment available to you.
Note: Obscenities are obscured by asterisks.
FAQ
Where does Teams process the data it uses to provide live captions?
We process the data in the geographical region where your organization is based.
What data does Teams use to create the captions?
The Microsoft Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology service, which generates Teams meeting captions, may use a meeting's subject, invitation, participant names, attachments, and recent emails of the participants to improve the accuracy of captions.
How does Teams translate live captions?
We use the Microsoft Speech Translation technology powered by Azure Cognitive Services for translating live captions.
Who has access to this data?
No one. Microsoft ASR involves no human intervention, and no one can access the meeting audio or any other meeting information at any time.
Does Teams store any caption data?
No. Caption data is permanently deleted after the meeting is over.
If I don't want Teams to process this data to begin with, can I prevent it?
Yes. Simply don't turn on live captions. Your admin can also disable the feature altogether. Go herefor more info about how to do that.
Important: Microsoft reserves the right to restrict transcription and translation services, with reasonable notice, in order to limit excessive use and/or fraud, and to maintain service performance. These services include live captions, subtitles, and transcription functionality available across Office 365 products like Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Stream, and others.
Teams can detect what's said in a meeting or group call and present real-time captions.
Note: Captions aren't yet available in government clouds on the Teams mobile app.
Turn captions on and off
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In the meeting controls, select More options
Note: Teams doesn't save captions.
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Choose More options
Get the most out of your captions
For the most accurate captions possible, try to follow these best practices:
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Speak clearly, slowly, and directly into the mic. As your distance from the mic increases, captions may become less accurate.
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Avoid locations with background noise.
-
Avoid having multiple people speak at the same time.
Notes:
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Obscenities are obscured by asterisks.
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Teams may use a meeting's subject, invitation, participant names, and attachments to improve caption accuracy.
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