Guidance for Captioner (Live Captioning requests)

Live Captioning your events with CaptionSync allows you to submit guidance for the captioners. This article shows how.

Sending Guidance for the Captioner:

Use the Comments section to send notes and specific instructions for the captioners, like speaker names, special/technical terminology, the spelling of names, unusual words, names of places, agenda, event password, etc.

• On the New Live Captioning Request page, add your notes to the Comments section:

NOTE: Please do not use the Audio Source field to add password or instructions for the captioner. You can add that information in the Comments instead.

• We do not accept attachments on the Comments or Captioner Message Thread field. So if you have a file and wish to send it to the captioner (for example, the script, slides run of show, etc), you can make it available online, using services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Hightail, etc. Publish the file as "public" and/or "unlisted". Then paste the URL to your file in the Comments section, and explain what it pertains to.

Adding Guidance to Existing requests:

Once the Live Captioning request has been scheduled in our system, you can no longer edit the Comments, and so to provide guidance and/or prep materials for the captioner after the request has been placed, you'll need to use the Captioner Message Thread box instead, from within the Live Details page of the request:

Important Notes:

• If you have notes that are the same for several requests, you can also use the Persistent Note for Live feature. If saved as default, the guidance will then be applied to all future requests.
  
  
• Prep materials, or guidance, are important since they will help the captioner prepare for the event and provide more accurate captions. These can include the agenda, timeline, run of show, list of speaker/presenter names, subject matter; a glossary of terms, phrases, acronyms, etc, as well as slides that may be shown during the session. Prep materials should be provided at least 24 hours before the start of event.
  
  
• If there will be any songs playing during the event, please provide us with a set list and/or lyrics, if the captioner is expected to caption the songs.