How to Add Caption (Subtitle) Track to Your YouTube Video

Captions or subtitles are the textual representation of a video's soundtrack. YouTube has an awesome subtitles track features that help viewers who can't use audio track for any reason: physical inability, speak a different language, or simply because they're in some moments that force them to turn the volume off, i.e watching YouTube video via smartphone in a quiet library. Caption is a great tool to improve reading and listening skills for non-English speakers. Also, a text alternative for Your videos ensure it to be indexed by search engines more fast.

You can add captions to one of your YouTube videos by uploading a caption file using the "Captions and Subtitles" menu on the editing page. YouTube support simple subtitle format that is compatible with formats known as SubViewer (*.SUB) and SubRip (*.SRT). Only supported formats will be displayed properly on the playback page. You can use subtitling softwares such as Subtitle Workshop or MovCaptioner (Mac only) to create these files. You can also use other subtitling softwares as long as it capable to create YouTube compatible subtitle files.

Each caption must have three parts: a timecode, caption text, and a blank line. The caption format consists of text divided into separate caption (or subtitle) segments, in chronological order. A timecode specifies when the caption should be shown, and for how long. The caption text must be UTF-8 encoded so any language can be supported. A blank line is used to mark the end of each caption.

However, any details on how to create caption files is beyond the scope of this article, and may vary depend on subtitling software You use.

Once You have the caption files, log into Your YouTube account to upload those file. Do steps below:

• Mouse over and click your Account (username) link on the upper right corner of page.
• Click 'My Videos'.
• Find the video you'd like to add captions or subtitles, then click the 'Captions' button.
• Click the 'Add New Captions or Transcript' button.
• Click the 'Choose file' button and find the caption/subtitle file saved in your computer to upload. Additional options will appear. Select the appropriate language. If you wish, you can also enter a track name.
• Click the 'Upload file' button.

If your uploaded subtitle doesn't appear after a few hours, they may be in a format not supported by YouTube, or there may be something wrong with your encoding.