Skip to main content
BigBlueButton can automatically generate closed captions in Chrome and Safari. When the feature is enabled, each user can choose to have their own audio captioned, and any user can view the captions in the session and the recording.

​
Enable captions for your audio

Once enabled, each user has the option to caption their audio when joining. In a class, typically the educator captions their own voice.

​
View captions during the session

As soon as one user has captions enabled, a CC button appears at the bottom of the screen for everyone. To view captions for every speaker who has enabled captions, select the CC button. To open the full transcript panel, select Live Transcript on the left-hand side. You can download the transcript anytime by selecting the Download button.
When using Blindside Networks hosting of BigBlueButton, this feature is available for enabling on your account.

​
Captions in the recording

After the session ends, users can view the captions in the recording by clicking the ‘CC’ button in the recording playback toolbar.
Privacy: Chrome and Safari implement browser speech-to-text by sending the user’s audio to Google’s cloud services and Apple’s transcription services. Captioning works well, but the user’s audio is shared with Google and Apple for the speech-to-text conversion. Be aware of this data sharing before enabling the feature.