Imagine you’re attending a presentation where the speaker’s words are automatically captioned in real-time on presentation slides.
Think that’s a feature you’ll see in the future?
Think again!
That feature is rolling out today in Google Slides, making presentations more accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Announced on the Google blog today by Laura D’Aquila and Abigail Klein, software engineers who work on G Suite Accessibility, the closed captioning feature uses the microphone built into your computer to detect what you’re saying.
It then transcribes the spoken words in real-time and displays the captions at the bottom of your screen.
How cool is that?
How Real-Time Captioning Works in Google Slides
Real-time captioning for Google Slides is currently available for a single user speaking U.S. English on a laptop or desktop computer using the Google Chrome browser.
Plans are to expand the feature to more countries and languages in the future.
To get started using Slides real-time captions:
- Open your Slides presentation
- Select Present to start your presentation
- Enable captions by selecting CC in the toolbar
- Start speaking. Captions will display at the bottom of the screen.
- Turn off captions by selecting CC in the toolbar
Here’s an example of real-time captioning in Slides:
What You Need to Know
Like any type of autocaptions, you’ll get better results with less background noise.
If you’re using videoconferencing application, like Google Hangout, the captions will display on the shared screen.
Captions will automatically turn off when there is no activity on your computer for 30 minutes.
Summary
Google Slides has been my presentation apps of choice for years. I love that they keep adding features to it, like real-time Q & A, and now real-time captioning.
I can’t wait to try it out and share my results with you!
Has real-time captioning rolled out to your version of Google Slides yet? Have you tried it? If yes, share your experience in the comments.
