Subtitles provide viewers with a video’s dialogue in written form. They are designed for viewers who do not understand the language being spoken in the video. Captions include subtitles plus a written description of what is occurring in a video. They are designed for viewers who are unable to hear or who have difficulty hearing the audio in a video.
Skip ahead:
- Turn on captions or subtitles while viewing a video
- Add captions or subtitles to your video
- Automatic closed captions
Here's a short video about captions and subtitles on Vimeo:
Turn on captions or subtitles while viewing a video
To turn on captions or subtitles while viewing a video, click the CC button in the player's bottom toolbar. In the menu that appears, select the caption or subtitle track you’d like to see.
We use Helvetica Neue with bold styling for captioning and subtitle display in the Vimeo player. The size of the font is responsive, meaning it will adjust per the size of your browser window.
To see captions in action, try turning them on in the video below:
Note: Video creators upload captions and subtitles to their own videos. If you do not see your language, it probably means that the video has not yet been transcribed or translated. Feel free to contact the video creator directly to inquire.
Add captions or subtitles to your video
To add captions or subtitles to your video by uploading your own file, follow these steps:
- Navigate to your video manager and open the desired video.
- Select the Advanced option on the right side of the video to access additional video settings.
- Go to Distribution > Subtitles.
- Click the “+” button, then specify the language and file type.
- Click Choose File and upload the file from your computer.
- Once the file is uploaded, you’ll need to toggle it on to activate it. To replace, delete, download, or edit the file, click on the three dots next to the file name and select the corresponding option from the menu.
If you don’t already have captions or subtitles for your video, you can purchase them through one of the trusted providers listed below. These same providers are also listed on the Advanced tab of your video’s settings.
Vimeo supports the following captions and subtitles file formats: SRT, WebVTT, DFXP/TTML, SCC, and SAMI files, but we recommend using WebVTT whenever possible. We also recommend encoding your caption files in UTF-8 format. Otherwise, captions that contain special characters may not display properly during playback.
Automatic closed captions
Vimeo offers automatic closed captioning, so all videos will be automatically transcribed by our system during the upload process. This tool is currently only available to our Enterprise members, but we will be rolling it out to all future membership tiers in the future. Current Enterprise users should reach out to their account manager to enable this feature.
Automatic closed captioning is enabled by default. To disable this feature, follow these steps:
- Navigate to your video’s Advanced Settings page and clicking on the Distribution tab.
- Scroll down to the subheading Subtitles and Captions.
- Below Captions, toggle off Auto closed captions.
Note: At this time, all automatic closed captions are only available in English. So if you would like to offer additional languages to your audience, you’ll need to upload separate subtitle or caption files.
Your viewers will be able to turn on captions, and toggle between the available languages, on your video’s clip page by clicking the [CC] button on the video toolbar.
Below the player on the simplified video settings and clip pages, you’ll find a [CC] button that when pressed will launch our new captions panel. From the panel, you’ll be able to follow along with the video’s transcript. Clicking on any segment of the transcript will take you to that point in the video. Additionally, if you leave the panel open while your video plays, the system will auto-scroll through each line of text and highlight it when it appears in the player so that you can follow along.
You can also search for a video from your Video Library using keywords from your transcripts. When you select a video from the search results, you’ll be taken to the video’s settings page and the transcript panel will open automatically.
