Use live captions in Microsoft Teams meetings

Turn captions on and off

• To use live captions in a meeting, go to your meeting controls at the top of the screen and select More actions > Language and speech > Show live captions .

• To stop using live captions, go to your meeting controls and select More actions > Language and speech >Hide live captions .

Change the spoken language

Set a meeting’s spoken language to the language people are speaking for more accurate captions.

If people are speaking a different language than the meeting’s set spoken language, Teams will detect the language mismatch. Then, the meeting organizer, co-organizer, transcript initiator, or initiator of the feature that turned on transcription, will be prompted to update the spoken language:

The meeting organizer, co-organizer(s), transcript initiator, or initiator of any feature that turned on transcription, can access the meeting spoken language at any time.

To access the meeting spoken language settings:

1. To the right of captions, select Caption settings > Language settings .

2. In the Meeting spoken language dropdown menu, select the language everyone is speaking from the dropdown menu.

3. Select Update to change.

To set up live translated captions in an event:

1. Open the event in your Teams calendar.

2. In Details, select Meeting options .

3. In Translate attendee captions, select the languages that live translated captions will be available in during your event.
   
   

4. Select Apply.

Attendees can see live translated captions in only one of the languages you preselected.

To use live translated captions:

1. Turn on live captions in your meeting.

2. To the right of captions, select Caption settings > Language settings .

3. Make sure Meeting spoken language is correct.

4. Turn on the Translate to toggle.

5. In the dropdown menu, select the language you want your captions translated to.

Customize captions

If you're using the desktop app on Windows or Mac, you can customize the font size and color, increase the number of lines displayed, and change the positioning of the captions in the meeting window.

1. To the right of captions, select Caption settings > Caption styles .

2. Choose the color, position, and style you want to see your captions in.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Supported languages:

English (US), English (Canada), English (India), English (UK), English (Australia), English (New Zealand), Arabic (Arab Emirates), Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Chinese (Simplified China), Chinese (Traditional, Hong Kong SAR), Chinese (Traditional, Taiwan), Czech (Czechia), Danish (Denmark), Dutch (Belgium), Dutch (Netherlands), French (Canada), French (France), Finnish (Finland), German (Germany), Greek (Greece), Hebrew (Israel), Hindi (India), Hungarian (Hungary), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (Korea), Norwegian (Norway), Polish (Poland), Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian (Romania), Russian (Russia), Slovak (Slovakia), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), Swedish (Sweden), Thai (Thailand), Turkish (Turkey), Ukrainian (Ukraine), Vietnamese (Vietnam), Welsh (Wales)

Supported translation languages: 

Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, French (Canada), German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

Get the most out of your captions

To make sure your live captions are as accurate as possible, try these best practices:

• Speak clearly, slowly, and directly into the mic. As your distance from the mic increases, captions may become less accurate.

• Avoid locations with background noise.

• Avoid having multiple people speak at the same time.

• Use the highest-quality Teams-certified equipment available to you.

FAQ