Stanford
Office of Accessible Education

How To: Add Captions in Canvas - Files

Adding Captions to Videos in Canvas - Files

1A. Find the Video in Canvas

Within Canvas, click on Courses icon in the far left menu to select the Course.

Then click on Files to find the video.

screenshot of Stanford Canvas > Courses (boxed in green) > Files (green arrow)

1B. Find the Video in Canvas

How your videos are organized in Files may differ. In the screenshot below, the professors have stored all of their lecture videos in a folder, Recorded Lectures(green box).

The instructions in this "How To" will focus on Lecture9.mp4, highlighted with the green arrow.

screenshot of Stanford Canvas Files with videos shown in a folder named Recorded Lectures

2. Open the Video in Canvas

Click the video you want to caption. 

In the screenshot below, we have clicked the video file, Lecture9.mp4.

screenshot of Lecture9.mp4

3. Hover on the [CC] Icon to Click "Upload subtitles"

On the bottom menu bar of the video player, look for the [CC] icon (green box) between the time length and video speed.

Hover/click on [CC] until a small pop-up menu appears. Click "Upload subtitles" (indicated with a green arrow).

Hover on the [CC] icon and click the "Upload subtitles" option indicated with a green arrow

4. Create/Add Subtitles

Clicking on "Upload subtitles" will open a Create/Add Subtitles window that looks like the following screenshot.

screenshot of the Create/Add Subtitles window highlighted in green

5. Skip to Step 3

Since you will be provided with an SRT file (.srt format), you can skip directly to Step 3.

Screenshot highlighting Step 3 of Create/Add Subtitles because you already have an SRT file

6. Choose a Language

Click the dropdown menu indicated with the green arrow, and choose the captioning language.

This will typically be English (except for foreign language classes).

Green arrow pointing to "Choose a Language" in Step 3 of Create/Add Subtitles

7. Choose File

Click the Choose File button (or Browse button depending on your browser) to select the captioner-provided file (.srt format) from your compter. 

Green arrow pointing to "Choose File" button in Step 3 of Create/Add Subtitles

8. Verify the .srt File

Once the .srt captioning file has been chosen from your computer, check that the file name appears next to the Choose File button.

In the screenshot below, Captions.srt appears next to the Choose File button; both are underlined in green.

Choose File and the .srt file name are underlined in green on Step 3 of Create/Add Subtitles

9. Upload the .srt File

Finish by clicking the Upload button.

Green arrow pointing to Upload button of the Create/Add Subtitles screenshot

10. Confirm the Video is Captioned (Optional)

To confirm the captions were successfully added, navigate back to the video and find the [CC] icon in the player menu.

When the small pop-up menu appears, you will now see an option for the language of the caption file you choose previously.

Hover on the [CC] icon and the "English" option is indicated with a green arrow

Additional Resources

Canvas >> Q & A

Canvas >> Q & A >> Guides

Canvas >> Q & A >> Guides >> How do I add captions to new or uploaded videos in Canvas as an instructor?