On September 20, 2022 Microsoft rolled out their first major update to Windows 11.
One of the major enhancements included in that update was the ability to display “Live Captions” at the top of the screen containing a real-time written transcript of whatever is being said in virtually any type of audio content.
The audio that’s captioned can be anything from movie dialog and song lyrics to live spoken (or sung) audio captured via the PC’s microphone.
And truth be told, it works amazingly well.
If you’d like to give it a try, there are two easy ways to enable Live Captions in Windows 11…
The easiest and fastest way is to simply press the Ctrl+Windows+L key combination (i.e. press the Ctrl key, the Windows key and the L key at the same time).
If you prefer using the mouse instead the keyboard you can also enable Live Captions via Windows’ Settings app. Here’s how:
1 – Right-click on the Start button and select Settings from the menu.
2 – In the left-hand pane, click Accessibility.
3 – In the right-hand pane, scroll down to the “Hearing” section and click Captions.
4 – Toggle the “Live Captions” setting to On.
That’s all there is to it. Regardless of which method you used to enable it, the gray Live Captions bar should now be visible at the top of the screen.
If you would prefer having it at the bottom of the screen simply click the “gear” icon at the right end of the gray bar and select the Bottom position.