You’ve spent hours building a polished eLearning course in Adobe Captivate. The visuals are clean, the interactions are smooth, and the voiceover sounds professional. But here’s a question worth pausing on can every learner in your audience actually experience what you’ve built?

For the millions of learners who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have low vision, a course without closed captions or audio descriptions isn’t just inconvenient — it’s a barrier. And as instructional designers, that’s a problem we have the tools and the responsibility to fix. Adobe Captivate makes it genuinely achievable, without needing to be a technical expert or a dedicated accessibility specialist.

This guide walks you through both features i.e. closed captions and audio descriptions – step by step, so you can build courses that truly work for everyone.

Why These Two Features Are Not Optional

Let’s clear up a common misconception first: closed captions and audio descriptions are not the same thing, and they don’t serve the same audience.

Closed captions are on-screen text representations of the audio in your course — narration, dialogue, sound cues — designed primarily for learners who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Audio descriptions are narrated explanations of what’s happening visually on screen — animations, on-screen text changes, interactions — designed for learners who are blind or have low vision and rely on screen readers or audio to follow the course.

Both are required under WCAG 2.1 and Section 508 standards. Missing either one means your course is not fully accessible — and potentially non-compliant for corporate or government training contexts.

The pain point most designers hit? They build the entire course, add a voiceover at the end, and assume that covers accessibility. It doesn’t. A learner using a screen reader still cannot understand what’s happening visually. A learner who is hard of hearing still cannot follow the narration without captions. Both audiences are left behind and usually, nobody catches it until after publishing.

Part 1: Adding Closed Captions in Adobe Captivate

Step 1 — Add Your Audio or Video to the Slide

Start with a slide that contains either a voiceover audio file or an embedded video. If you’re recording narration directly in Captivate, use the Record Audio option from the toolbar. For video content, go to Insert > Video and add your file as a multi-slide synchronized video.

Step 2 — Open the Caption Editor

For audio-based slides, go to the Audio panel in the right toolbar. You’ll find an option to open the closed caption editor. Here, you can manually type your captions or paste a pre-written script, then sync each line to a specific timestamp on the timeline.

For video-based slides, go to Video > Edit Video Timing and click the Closed Captioning tab. Place your cursor at the correct timestamp and click the + icon to add each caption line.

Step 3 — Import Captions Using SRT or VTT Files

If you’re working at scale or collaborating with a captioning vendor, Captivate supports importing pre-written caption files in SRT (SubRip Subtitle) and VTT (Web Video Text Tracks) formats. Go to Audio > Import Captions and select your file. This saves significant time when dealing with long-form content or multiple language versions of a course.

For a detailed walkthrough of working with caption file formats, the complete guide to importing and exporting closed captions in Adobe Captivate covers every format and export option in depth.

Step 4 — Style and Position Your Captions

Captivate lets you control how captions look and where they appear. Go to Edit > Preferences > Project > Captions and Playbar to customize font size, background color, and position. Make sure your caption text meets WCAG contrast requirements. Avoid placing captions over critical visual content.

Step 5 — Test Before Publishing

Always preview your course with captions enabled before publishing. Check that caption timing aligns with the audio, that text is readable at a glance, and that no lines overlap awkwardly. If you’re publishing to an LMS, test the exported package with captions toggled on in the playback environment too.

Part 2: Adding Audio Descriptions for Visual Content

Audio descriptions address a different — and often far more overlooked — learner need. When a learner cannot see your screen, they depend entirely on what they hear to follow the course. If your narration says “click the green button shown here,” a blind learner has no idea what that refers to.

Good audio descriptions don’t just restate what the voiceover already says. They describe what’s happening visually — the layout, the actions, the relevant on-screen content — in a way that makes the course fully understandable without sight.

This is also why the way you write descriptions matters as much as where you put them. The same principle applies to how alt text and video descriptions work across any digital content: descriptions should provide context and explain purpose, not just label what’s visually present. Writing effective descriptions for visual and video content is a discipline that carries directly into eLearning design.

Step 1 — Write Descriptions Into Your Slide Notes

The simplest and most effective starting point is the Notes panel in Captivate. For each slide, write a plain-language description of what’s happening visually — the layout, the interactions, the on-screen text that isn’t spoken aloud in the narration.

Step 2 — Convert Notes to Audio Using Text-to-Speech

Once your notes are written, go to Audio > Speech Management. Select the slides whose notes you want to convert, assign a TTS (Text-to-Speech) voice, and generate the audio. Captivate offers a range of natural-sounding multi-accent voices that work well for accessible narration.

Step 3 — Set Accessibility Text for Every Object

Beyond audio, make sure every object on your slide has an Accessibility Name and Description. Select an object, open the Accessibility inspector panel, and add meaningful text. This is what screen readers like JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver will read aloud when a learner navigates to that element.

Avoid vague labels like “image” or “button.” Write something specific: “Diagram showing the four stages of the onboarding process” or “Submit button — click to complete the module quiz.”

Step 4 — Define a Logical Reading Order

Screen readers follow the reading order you define in Captivate, not the visual layout of the slide. Go to the Reading Order panel and drag objects into the sequence a screen reader should follow — typically heading first, then supporting text, then image descriptions, then interactive elements.

Building Accessibility In, Not Bolting It On

The biggest mistake designers make with captions and audio descriptions is treating them as a finishing step — something to layer on once the course is “done.” By that point, it’s rework. Timing is off, descriptions feel retrofitted, and the experience for assistive technology users suffers.

The more sustainable approach is to plan for accessibility at the start of every project: script your narration with description in mind, write slide notes as you build each screen, and source caption-ready audio files from your vendor. This is what designing content to be born accessible from the start actually looks like in practice — accessibility built into the workflow, not added at the end.

Adobe Captivate gives you every tool you need: the caption editor, SRT/VTT import, Text-to-Speech engine, accessibility inspector, and reading order panel. The infrastructure is there. What closes the gap is the design habit of using them from slide one.

A Final Thought

Closed captions help learners who are deaf. They also help non-native speakers, learners in noisy environments, and anyone who processes information better when they read and listen together. Audio descriptions help learners with visual impairments. They also help anyone who needs a clearer mental model of what’s happening on screen.