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The Captions feature in Camtasia Studio allows you to synchronize the audio in your project with onscreen caption text.

Camtasia Studio Video Tutorial

Captions Overview

To add Captions to your Timeline, you must first open a project with clips on the Timeline in Camtasia Studio.

Then, select Captions in the Edit section of the Task List.

The following options are available on the Open Captions Task Page:

When you add captions:

• Text appears in the scripting text box and caption points are set
• The caption text updates in the Preview Window
• A Caption Point is added to the Timeline on the Caption track

Alright, now let’s move to actually adding captions to your project.

Adding Captions with the Sync Text and Audio Method

Camtasia Studio makes it easy to sync your captions with your audio using the Sync text and audio option on the Captions task page. The Timeline clips play back in the Preview Area and using just your mouse, you can then quickly synchronize the caption text to the audio as it plays.

1. Open a project with clips on the Timeline in Camtasia Studio and access the Captions task page by clicking Captions in the Task List.
2. Prepare your script in a word editor and copy it to the clipboard.
   

3. Click the Paste button on the Captions task page to paste the script into the scripting text box.
   

4. The first captions point is automatically created in the scripting text box and text is placed on the video within the Preview Area.

5. In the scripting text box, you will notice that the text turns from black to red after the first three lines. Please note that a maximum of three lines of text can be displayed at a time. The text turns red to remind you that anything over three lines will not be included in the current caption.
   

6. Click the Start button to begin setting Caption Points to sync the script with the audio.
   

7. Setting a new Caption Point is as simple as clicking on a word. Listen to the audio and when it reaches the first word in red, click on it with the left mouse button to set the caption point.
   

8. This will add three lines of text to your video as a caption and the text will turn black to indicate that it has been added as a caption. A new Caption Point is placed at that exact location on the Timeline and in the scripting text box.

9. Continue to set Caption Points for all of your text. You can pause the captioning process at any time by clicking on Pause. Click Resume to resume the recording.
   
   
10. As you add captions, the Preview Area and the Timeline continually update. The captioning process automatically ends when you reach the end of the Timeline. You can also click the Stop button to end the process at any time.
11. Once you click Stop, you will see all the Caption Points in the Caption Track on the timeline. If you have to adjust the location of a Caption Point, simply click on and drag the Caption point to the desired location on the timeline.
    

Adding Captions Manually

NOTE: Captions do not have a duration. Instead, they continue to show until a new Caption Point is set. If you want to have areas in the video that do not show a caption, simply insert a blank caption To insert a blank caption, follow the instructions for creating a Manual Caption, however, do not insert any text in that caption.

1. Open a project with clips on the timeline in Camtasia Studio and access the Captions task page by clicking Captions in the Task List.
2. Place the seekbar at the location on the timeline you want your first caption to appear.
   

3. Then, click on the Add button and enter the text for your first caption. Keep in mind that you are limited to three lines of text for each caption point and any text that goes beyond three lines will turn red to indicate that the caption is too long and the red text will not be included in the video.
   

4. Play back your video in the Preview Area until you reach the point where you want to add the next caption point. Pause the video when you have reached that point. Alternatively, you can also move the seekbar on the timeline to the desired location.
5. Click the Add button and enter your next Caption. Repeat this process until all Caption Points are set.
6. You will see all the Caption Points in the Caption Track on the timeline. If you have to adjust the location of a Caption Point, simply click on and drag the Caption point to the desired location on the timeline.

Captioning Options

There are a couple of options on the Caption task page that you can use to change the way your captions are displayed.

The available options are:

• Overlay: Captions are displayed in two ways – overlaid on top of the video or located underneath the video.
  
• When the Caption Overlay option is turned on, the captions are placed on top of the video.
  
  When the Caption Overlay option is turned off, the captions are placed underneath the video.

• Display: Turns the captions on or off to produce a final video with or without captions.
• Width (in chars): Three lines of text are displayed as a caption on the screen. This option allows you to change the width of characters that are displayed per line of text, allowing you to fit more text on the screen. However, increasing the width decreases the size of the characters so make sure that your captions can still be comfortably be viewed as the video plays.