Captioning a Video using Amara

Before You Start

If using Amara to create captions for your YouTube videos, you will need to have your own YouTube account and your own Amara account. You must have access to a video through YouTube video manager in order to upload the captions to it. Before getting started with closed captioning, you will need to upload your video to your YouTube account.

Close Caption Using Amara

A. Log in to Amara.

B. Copy the YouTube web address for the video that you want to caption and paste it into Amara. Click "Subtitle".

Screenshot of the Add a Video dialog box on Amara, showing the text box where you enter the YouTube URL and the SUBTITLE button you click to process the video.


C. Click "Subtitle Me" under the image of the video.

screenshot of a video being displayed on Amara with a SUBTITLE ME button below the video


D. Choose the language of the video (most likely English). Click "Continue".

E. Follow the step by step instructions within Amara to create your closed-caption file.

Note: It is highly recommended that you watch all three of the "how-to" videos as you go through the process the first time. They are extremely helpful in ensuring that you complete the steps correctly.


Step 1: Type in every word that is said and all important words displayed on the screen. This does not have to be perfect during this step. When finished, click "Done? Next Step: Sync".

Screenshot of the Amara screen captioning dialog box, showing video screens on the left and transcript details on the right.



Step 2: Line up the subtitles to the video. When finished, click "Done? Next Step: Subtitle info".

Screenshot of Amara Step 2 of the captioning process, showing how to align your captions with the video timeline.



Step 3: Correct the title and description information if needed. When finished, click "Done? Next Step: Check your work".

Screenshot of Amara Step 3 in the captioning process, showing the edit screen with close caption text



Step 4: Check your work. When finished, click "Done? Submit your work".

Screenshot of Amara Step 4 in the captioning process, showing the DONE button that the user clicks when the process is checked and completed.


F. Click Download Subtitles.

Screenshot of Amara process screen with a Download Subtitles option highlighted


G. It will automatically save as an SRT file. You can leave it in your Download folder.

Screenshot of a Save dialog box, to save the S R T text file from Amara

Add Caption to Video in YouTube

A. Go back to the video in YouTube under Video Manager.

You must have access to a video through YouTube video manager in order to upload the captions to it.

Screenshot showing the position of the Video Manager link on YouTube, under the UPLOAD menu bar item


B. Click on Edit, then Captions:

Screenshot of the YouTube dialog box with the Edit>Captions link highlighted


C. Click on Add Captions and then Upload a file:

Screenshot of the Add Captions dialog box, showing the two options of Transcribe and Sync, and Upload a File (select the second option, upload a file).


D. Click "Upload" and search to find SRT file in your download folder.

Congratulations! You have successfully closed-captioned a video.

screenshot of Success notification, reading Caption Track Created Successfully.



Here is the Miami YouTube video that was closed-captioned for this tutorial: