One of my user experience colleagues contacted me this week, asking about uploading transcripts for a YouTube video. Unfortunately, he had run into issues.
Can you help? he asked.
Sure, I replied. How do you best learn? I asked. From reading or watching?
My colleague replied he learned best from watching.
Ah, I have just the thing for you, I answered. YouTube Help published a video a couple weeks ago, just over a minute long, that explains how to upload transcripts.
Watch the video. If you’re still having issues, let me know.
The next day I heard back from my colleague, thanking me for the information. He watched the YouTube Help video, uploaded his transcript, and he’s all set.
If you’re looking to upload the transcript for your YouTube videos, here’s the help video I shared. The video describes:
- What transcripts are
- How to upload an existing transcript or manually enter the transcript
- How to set timings
YouTube will take a few minutes to add the transcript to the video, as well as synchronize the captions to the audio. If you’d rather not watch the video, check out the key takeaways from the video.
Key Takeaways
- According to the YouTube video, transcripts only contain the text of what was said in the video, but no timecodes.
Note: for a better description of what transcripts should contain, check out WebAIM Transcripts and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Audio Description or Media Alternative. - Once you’ve logged into YouTube, navigate to Video Manager
- At the Edit dropdown menu, select Subtitles and CC
- Select the language of the caption you want to add (needs to be the same language as your video)
- If you already have a transcript file, upload it directly by selecting Upload a file
- If you don’t have a transcript, select Transcribe and set timings. In the text box that displays, add what’s being said in the video. Once you’re finished adding text, select Set Timings.
- Setting timings can take a few minutes to added. When done, closed captions will be automatically published to your video.
If you want to learn more about transcripts, visit YouTube’s Transcript Help Guide.
Have you added transcripts to your YouTube videos? Did you find the process easy to do?
Updated: December 10, 2014 with text instructions for adding transcripts, link to YouTube’s Help Guide, and links to WebAIM and WCAG 2.0.
