What if you could turn your slide notes into automatic subtitles during your presentation? That would be good for everyone. The advantage is that you can write out the presentation and then deliver it perfectly without having to use lots of text on your slides. As you give your talk you click through the subtitles (captions) in the same way as you click through your slides. Best part, this subtitles for slide shows tool is free from the Cambridge Inclusive Design Team.
The audience gets a better experience with the actual words, because there’s no reliance on speech recognition and no time delays.
Presenting from pre-made subtitles is great for presenters who are prone to lots of ‘ums’ and ‘ers’. It’s also good for speakers who:
- Have to give a presentation in a language other than their native language
- Have a quiet voice, or substantial accent
- Need to customise the length of a presentation to an exact time slot
- Want to make a video of their presentation
- Have to deliver a presentation that was written by someone else
How do the subtitles work?
The Cambridge Subtitles for PowerPoint tool splits the text in your slide notes into short subtitles and adds these to the slide as animated text boxes. The tool adds a new toolbar to your ribbon which adds subtitles to your slides from the slide notes. The tool is offered free until the end of 2024 and available separately for Windows and Mac. You can download from the links on their webpage.
This tool is now part of the Cambridge Inclusive Design Toolkit.