PowerPoint Mac Users Can Now Create Captions with Speech Recognition
Microsoft Enhances PowerPoint Accessibility with Caption Generation
In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Microsoft has unveiled a significant upgrade for PowerPoint on Mac, enabling users to generate captions for embedded videos using advanced speech recognition technology. This innovative feature aims to enhance accessibility and cater to a diverse range of users, ensuring everyone can enjoy the content.
This latest enhancement builds on Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to accessibility, following the introduction of SRT file support earlier this year. This previous upgrade made it easier for users to import both professional and self-created caption files into their presentations across various platforms.
The Importance of Captions
Peter Wu, a Principal Software Engineer on the PowerPoint team, highlighted the significance of captioning, pointing out that it is vital for the 5% of the global population who are deaf or hard of hearing. Surprisingly, over 50% of Americans prefer watching videos with captions, demonstrating the widespread demand for this feature.
How to Generate Captions in PowerPoint
Here’s a step-by-step guide on utilizing the new caption generation feature:
Launch a new or existing presentation in PowerPoint on your Mac and insert a video.
Click on the video, navigate to Playback, and select Edit Captions. This option is also accessible via the right-click context menu or the Accessibility tab when the Accessibility Assistant is active.
Select the Generate Captions from: dropdown under the Closed Captions pane, choose the video’s spoken language, and wait for the captions to generate in the pane.
Choose a text cue to jump to that section in the video, allowing you to compare and adjust the spoken text for accuracy.
Translate captions by selecting the Translate to: dropdown and choosing your desired language.NOTE: The translated captions will appear in the Closed Captions pane once processing is complete.
Select Tracks to view a list of all caption tracks associated with your video.
Here, you can add additional tracks, remove existing ones, or reorder them as you see fit.
If you use a captioning service that supports WebVTT or SRT file formats, you can easily import this into your presentation through the Insert Captions from File feature in the Closed Captions pane.
Enhanced User Experience
Generated captions are not merely placeholders; users have the option to review, edit for clarity, format text (including bold and italics), and add details such as speaker names and descriptions of non-verbal sounds, like “[phone ringing].”Moreover, during PowerPoint Live presentations on Teams, each participant can choose their preferred captions track, contributing to a personalized viewing experience.
This innovative captioning feature is currently being rolled out to users within the PowerPoint for Mac Beta Channel, specifically for those utilizing Version 16.98 (Build 25050401) or later. As is standard with beta features, availability may vary across users in the channel.
Industry Trends and Competition
On a related note, Google also announced a suite of new AI-driven enhancements for Android and Chrome in recognition of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. These include innovative features like Gemini-powered image descriptions in TalkBack and enhanced real-time captions for video content.
NOTE: The translated captions will appear in the Closed Captions pane once processing is complete.
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