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Online Captioning without Software

This lesson will take you through a step-by-step process of captioning a video using a simple word processing program. To do this process, you will need to be using either QuickTime or RealMedia video.

For this process , there are three components.

1. Video file
2. Text file (which has the time codes and text of captions)
3. SMIL file (which serves like a web page to connect the video and text files in the appropriate way)

Download Archive of Sample Files

This zip file can be downloaded and has the files that you can edit to create captions of your own. These pages will walk you through the process. In the folder entitled, "caption_files," you will find 4 files:

1. test.mov (The original video file)
2. test.en_US.qt.txt (The file that has time codes and captions)
3. test.qt.smil (The file which connects video and text)
4. test.qt.mov (The re-named SMIL file which allows it to be opened by QuickTime.)

Step 1: Create a video file

Your advertisement will need to be changed into a video file that can be played effectively on the internet. For this process, you will need to have either a QuickTime or RealMedia player. To create this, you need a video-editing software program, such as iMovie or Windows Movie Maker.

In the sample, the video is in the QuickTime Format and named "test.mov." When you create your video file, you can give it whatever name you wish.

This project is created for a video that is 320 pixels wide and 240 pixels high. You can adjust that size if you would like to have a larger video. (Just note that the larger the size video, the harder it is for people with slow internet connections to view it.)

Important: You need to have all of these files together within the same folder or directory so they will be able to be connected appropriately.

Step 1: Video File | Step 2: Text File | Step 3: SMIL File