How to use live captions feature in Windows 11
When you are on a work voice or video call on Windows computers, you may miss parts of the conversation for several reasons, including: the Internet connection was cut off at certain moments or the audio was not clear enough for you to hear the entire conversation. On the other hand, if the person has hearing difficulties, this may prevent them from catching all the words spoken during the call.
Regardless of the reason for not being able to hear the entire conversation, you can use the live captions feature available on Windows 11 computers . When activated, the computer will start transcribing the text of the audible conversations and display it on the screen so that you can capture all the words mentioned in video and voice calls.
Here's how to use live captions in Windows 11:
1- Requirements for using the live captions feature in Windows 11
Live captions feature is available exclusively in Windows 11 and cannot be used by users of computers running Windows 10. To use it, you also need Windows 11 22H2 or later. You can check if your computer is running this version by following these steps:
- Go to Settings .
- Click on System, then About .
- In the ( Windows specifications) section , the version number appears next to the word (Version).
- If your computer's operating system is not updated to version 22H2, go to Settings, click Windows Update, and update your operating system.
2- How to use the live captions feature in Windows 11:
To start using live captions during a voice or video call, follow these steps:
1- Start or join a video or voice call.
2- Click on the button that includes the battery, sound, and Wi-Fi icons. This button appears on the right side of the bottom bar on the computer screen.
3- A list of multiple options will appear, activate the Live Caption option. Or you can activate the feature by clicking on the buttons (Windows, Ctrl, L).
4- The first time you activate this feature, you will be asked to consent to the local processing of your voice data , as Microsoft promises to keep your speech private and not share it. Consent is by clicking on the (I agree) button that will appear at the top of the screen.
5- After approval, a special window for the Live Caption feature will appear on your screen to display the conversation text.
6- By default, only the words of other people on the call are copied into the chat transcript window, so your words spoken during the call will not appear. Sentences will be displayed in the window, as two consecutive lines, then two more lines, and so on.
7- If you want to see more than two lines of chat text, drag the window from the top or bottom to enlarge it. You can also drag and move the window around the screen to change its position, but it will remain visible on top of other windows, so you can open other applications and perform other tasks on your computer while still seeing the chat text.
8- If you want to see your own words appear in text form during the call, click the settings icon in the window that displays the conversation text, then click the ( Caption options) option, and enable the ( Include microphone audio) option . From the same menu, you can also enable the (Profanity Filter) option if you prefer not to see any bad words in the conversation text.
9- To change the location of the window that displays the conversation text, click the Settings icon, then click the Position option , and choose either Top or Bottom.
10- You can also customize the color, size, and background color of the conversation text by changing the Caption style. To do this, follow these steps:
- Go to Settings on your computer, click on Accessibility , choose Captions , and then click on the Caption style button.
- To start customizing the way the chat text is displayed, uncheck the Default option and enable another option from the list of available options: White on black, Small caps, Large text, or Yellow on blue.
- If you don't like any of the available options, click the Edit button that appears in the Caption style section.
- In the Text section, select the text color, size, font type, effects, and opacity.
- Click the Background tab and select a color and opacity.
- Click the Window tab, and choose a color and opacity.
- When you're done, type a name in the Name your caption style field. An option with that name will appear in the Caption style options list.
