Ensure accessibility with live captioning in Teams meetings

Completed

Teams is a centralized hub and real-time meeting space for online meetings and presentations. Live broadcasting and video features let presenters connect and collaborate with members and guests in real time. Additionally, accessibility features are available throughout Microsoft 365 and Microsoft products.

In a Teams meeting, Teams can detect speech and generate real-time captions. It then adds live closed captions to the screen with speaker attribution. Monthly faculty meetings, class observation briefings, or any other staff meeting held in Teams can benefit from the live captioning feature.

Screenshot of live captions in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Turn on live captions in a Teams meeting

  1. Go to the meeting controls at the top of the screen.
  2. Select More ....
  3. Select Language and speech.
  4. Select Turn on live captions.

Screenshot showing how to turn on live captions in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Live translated captions in Teams meetings

By default, Teams displays live captions in the language being spoken during the meeting. If a school or district has Teams Premium, live translated captions are available in Teams meetings. Live translated captions give users the option to have captions translated into the language they’re most comfortable with.

Change the language of the captions

  1. Select Settings to the right of the caption.
  2. Select Spoken language.
  3. Choose the language being spoken.

Screenshot showing how to change the spoken language for live captions in a Teams meeting.

Personalize the appearance of the captions

Attendees can also modify the captions':

  • Color
  • Height
  • Position
  • Size

Screenshot showing the icon to open the live captions options panel in a Teams meeting.