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Editing Captions Locally (On Your Computer)

You may find it easier to edit captions on your computer rather than in Kaltura's web-based editor.

Quickstart Guide

Here's the high-level overview of what you need to do in order to edit your captions locally, which will be described in more detail below:

  1. Download your caption file from Canvas.
  2. Edit it in a text editor on your computer.
  3. Upload it back into your video in Canvas.
  4. Delete the old inaccurate caption file.
  5. Delete any other unedited caption files (e.g. machine captions that came from Zoom).
  6. File away your caption file with the rest of your course files on your computer for safekeeping.

Instructions

  1. Within Canvas, click "My Media" in the left navigation.
  2. Locate the video in question and click the pencil icon on its row.
  3. Click the "Captions" tab below the video preview.
  4. On the row with your captions, click the icon with the downward arrow, and the caption file will download to your computer.

A screenshot of the options within the "Captions" tab.

  1. Open the caption file with a basic text editor. (Most operating systems have a free text editor that comes with them, such as WordPad in Windows and TextEdit on a Mac.)
  2. Now you can begin editing your captions. (See our article on caption editing tips if it helps.)

A screenshot of a text editor with captions in it next to a browser window in Canvas with the Kaltura video player.

  1. Once you've made all of your edits, save your file and return to Canvas in your browser.
  2. In the "Captions" tab in the video details, click the button labeled "Upload captions file."
  3. Browse for the file on your computer, select the language, leave the accuracy at 100%, and give it a label. The label is what will appear in the player when viewers select the captions they'd like displayed. You may want to add something like "(edited)" to the label to make clear to viewers (and perhaps your future self) that the captions have been checked for accuracy.
  4. If there are other caption files available that are inaccurate, consider deleting them or disabling them.
  5. If you wish, store the edited caption file on your computer with the rest of the files related to your course for safekeeping.

Your edited captions will be visible immediately.

Human Captions

Note that because you can upload captions yourself, you can leverage captioning services that you employ on your own, such as Rev.com or Cielo24. Captioning services like these usually cost between $1 and $2 per minute of media. You may want to talk to your department about this cost if you think it necessary.

Have additional questions about video? Contact Multimedia Services at kaltura@ucsd.edu.