How to Enable Live Transcription on Zoom Meetings [2 Ways]

Have you ever been in a Zoom meeting where you don’t hear the speaker due to noisy backgrounds, or you just don’t understand the accents?

Either case, you may hope there is a magic spell to help.

Good news, Zoom has announced its magic feature named call live transcription that converts the speaker’s audio into text in real-time so you can follow the conversations easily.

Excited to know more about the live transcription feature? Let’s dive into this guide.

What are the benefits of Zoom live transcription?

When Zoom live transcription is enabled, all participants will see the transcript as subtitles as the video meeting goes on. And it has several benefits as follows:

• Increase engagement in the conversation as you don’t need to split attention between taking notes and listening.

• Make the meetings more inclusive for participants with hearing impairment and non-native language users.

• Improved audience comprehension. The captioned text can be a visual learning aid for students or those in loud areas.

• The transcript makes your video content searchable and therefore easier to find specific information.

How to enable live transcription on Zoom?

Before moving to the steps, we should note some prerequisites for the Zoom native transcription feature:

• You need a Pro, Business, or Enterprise account.

• You are the account owner or have admin privileges.

Now, follow the steps below to enable live transcription (automated captions) in Zoom.

1. Log in to your Zoom account via a web browser.

2. Click on Settings on the left side panel, and select Meeting > In Meeting (Advanced).

   
   

3. Scroll down and switch on the toggle for Automated captions.

4. (Optional) There are additional options below including Full transcript and Save captions; you can turn them on if necessary.

   

Once set up, this option will be available during your meetings permanently.

Use live transcription during a Zoom call

Note: Only the meeting host can turn on or off automatic transcription.

1. ‍In a Zoom meeting, click Live Transcript at the bottom toolbar.

2. Select Enable Auto-Transcription from the options; a notification will pop up confirming that live transcription is on.

   

3. An up arrow will appear beside the Live Transcript button. The host and participants can click on it to adjust the transcripts.

   

• Show/Hide Subtitle: Display/hide the live video subtitles at the bottom screen.

• View Full Transcript: View the full transcript in the in-meeting side panel.

• Subtitle Settings allows personalization for the subtitles.

How to generate Zoom live transcript with Airgram (free!)

Zoom live transcription is no doubt helpful; however, it has got some limitations:

• It currently only supports English. 

• It is relatively sensitive to background noise and can fail to capture dialects or specific vocabulary related to your industry properly. 

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These constraints may motivate you to seek a third-party service for your transcription needs, and the Airgram meeting transcription tool is one of the best choices in the market for its advanced features.

• Generate a live transcript of the Zoom meeting alongside the video recording. 

• Supports eight languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese.

• Speaker names and time stamps are displayed.

• You can view, search through, edit, and export the transcript easily.

• Airgram is also compatible with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams.

Enable Zoom live transcription using Airgram

‍After creating an Airgram account with your Google or Microsoft account or using your email, you can now move ahead to transcribe a Zoom meeting.

1. Log in to the Airgram web app.

2. Click on Quick Record from the top right corner and select Zoom. (If you have connected Airgram to the calendar, you can also navigate to Meetings on the left menu and find the Zoom meeting.)

   

3. Choose a transcription language, paste your Zoom meeting link here, and click Start Recording.

   
   

4. Admit the Airgram assistant to your Zoom call – and voilà, you’ll now get live transcription.

   
   

What can you do with the Zoom transcript?

When the meeting is over, you will view the transcript within the app and make edits; there is no need to switch to other tools.

Quick search

Click on the ‘search icon’ or use a ‘Ctrl+F’ command; you can quickly search through the whole transcript to find crucial information quickly. 

Edit your transcript

Feel free to edit individual words in the transcript if you find any mistakes. Airgram allows you to listen to the recording in the meantime to aid the editing. 

Share a clip

Instead of sharing the whole transcript, you can make a clip and only share the most important part.

Export the transcript

Export a transcript to Notion, Google Docs, Word, or Slack so that you can view it conveniently.

Zoom native transcription vs. Airgram transcription

We have introduced two ways to enable Zoom live transcription above, and you may still hesitate to make a choice. Therefore hereby, we make a comparison table to give you a clear insight.

The most common way of getting live transcription via Zoom is through the built-in feature. However, if you want a free and accurate transcription, complete with interactive live features, Airgram is your go-to solution. 

FAQs on Zoom live transcription

Is Zoom live transcription free?

No, Zoom live transcription is not a free feature. You need a Pro, Business, or Enterprise account to use it.

Why is the live transcript not showing on Zoom?

Participants will not see the Live Transcript option if the host of the meeting didn’t turn on this feature. You may check with the meeting host.