Sometimes, your PowerPoint presentations aren’t going out to a couple of people in a conference room. You’re presenting to dozens – maybe even hundreds – at an event or as part of a webinar. When that happens, you have to account for accessibility issues, especially for people who may not be able to hear you as you present.
Enter subtitling for your PowerPoint presentations.
Some versions of PowerPoint allow you to add live subtitles (similar to closed captioning) so your audience can see what you’re saying. Here’s how to add live subtitles to PowerPoint.
First – The Requirements
We mentioned earlier that only some versions of PowerPoint allow you to add live subtitles. Any MSI-installed version – meaning versions installed using Microsoft’s proprietary installation software – lack this feature. So, if you have a standalone copy of Microsoft Office rather than the subscription-based version, you can’t add subtitles using the method we’re about to share.
You need to have Microsoft Office 365 version 16.0.11601.20178 or above to set up your live captions. You should have that if you’re keeping up with updates. Assuming you do, you can use these steps to create your subtitles in both the Windows and Web versions of PowerPoint.
The Steps to Add Live Subtitles to PowerPoint
PowerPoint’s live captioning is surprisingly versatile, going so far as to offer translation options. That’s a boon if you intend to present to a multi-national audience if you have intentions to translate your presentation at a later date.
Now, let’s enable your subtitles.
Step 1: Navigate to the “Slide Show” tab in your PowerPoint ribbon and head to “Subtitle Settings.”
Alternative Step 1: If you’d rather not leave your presentation while you set up subtitles, you can also head to the Presenter View menu and click “Subtitle Settings,” followed by “More Settings.”
Step 2: Locate the “Spoken Language” option to see a list of the languages that PowerPoint can recognize. By default, this is set to the language you’ve assigned as your Office editing language (likely English) but there are several other options. Choose the appropriate language – PowerPoint will need to know so it can “listen” to you while creating its captions.
Step 3: Head to “Subtitle Language” and set the language in which you want your live subtitles to display. This language will default to your choice for “Spoken Language” – such as English with English – but can be changed to any of the other options. For instance, choosing Spanish as your “Subtitle Language” for an English presentation will cause PowerPoint to auto-translate what you say before displaying its captions.
Step 4: Head back into the “Subtitle Settings” menu and find the position settings. You have several options here:
- Overlaid – Your live PowerPoint subtitles appear over the bottom or top margin of your presentation.
- Docked – The subtitles appear within the slides themselves, again either at the bottom or top depending on your choice.
PowerPoint defaults to the “Below Slide” overlaid setting, so adjust to suit your preferences.
Step 5: All that’s left is to tweak your subtitles so they look how you want them to look as you present. Head to “Subtitle Settings,” then go to “More Settings.” You’ll find options to change your subtitles’ background, contrast, coloring, size, font, and transparency. Experiment with these options to see which combination works best for the color scheme used in your presentation.
Toggling Your Live PowerPoint Subtitles
Now you can add live subtitles to PowerPoint, there’s only one more thing to know – how to toggle those captions on and off.
If you always want them on, head to the “Slide Show” tab and check the box next to “Always Use Subtitles.” Your settings from the previous steps will be applied to all presentations you create until you uncheck the box.
If you’d like to toggle live, you can do so in both Slide Show View and Presenter View. In both cases, look for the toggle button – it’s an icon that looks screen with lines representing words at the bottom – to toggle.
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