GUIDELINES FOR CAPTIONING
TEXT: TEXT REFERS TO THE APPEARANCE AND PRESENTATION OF THE LETTERS AND WORDS
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Feature
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DO’s
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DON’Ts
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Additional Information
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CASE
Visit the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) Captioning Key for more detailed guidelines.
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Case
- Mixed case characters are preferred for readability
- Use
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FONT
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- capital letters for shouting not for emphasis.
Font/Color
- White Characters on a dark translucent background
- Medium weight, sans serif font
- A drop or rim shadow
- Proportionally spaced
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- , avoid overlap with other characters
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A font, or typeface, is a set of characters at a certain size, weight, and style. Font characteristics must be consistent throughout the media.
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LINE DIVISION
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Line Division
- Do not break a modifier from the word it modifies
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- Do not break a prepositional phrase
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- Do not break a person’s name
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- or the title from the name with which it is associated
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- Do not break a line after a conjunction
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- Do not break an auxiliary verb from the word it modifies
- Never end a sentence
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- /begin a new sentence on the same line unless they are short, related sentences containing only one or two words
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When a sentence is broken into two or more lines of captions, it should be broken at a logical point where speech normally pauses.
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Caption Placement
- Multi-lined captions should be left aligned when technically possible
- Captions are placed on the bottom two lines
- It is preferred that there are no more than two lines per caption
- If placing captions at the
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- bottom of the screen
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- interferes with visuals/graphics, place captions elsewhere on the screen where they do not interfere
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- Place all captions with reasonable margins
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- Placement should not interfere with names, faces, or mouths of speakers or text/graphics that are essential to the comprehension of the media
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Caption Placement(vertical and horizontal) refers to the location of captions on the screen
LANGAUGE MECHANICS:
Language mechanics incorporate the proper use of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and other factors deemed necessary for high-quality captioned media.
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Feature
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DO’s
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DON’Ts
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Additional Information
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SPELLING AND CAPITALIZATION
- Speaker identification should be used
Spelling, Punctuation, Grammar
Spelling and Capitalization
- Be consistent in the spelling of words throughout the media
- Capitalize proper nouns for speaker identification
- Lowercase sound effects, including both descriptions and onomatopoeia. Except when a proper noun is part of the description
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DO NOT:
- Emphasize a word using all capital letters except to indicate screaming or shouting
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PUNCTUATION AND GRAMMAR
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Commas:
Punctuation and Grammar
- When captioning a list separated by commas, use a serial, or Oxford, comma
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Hyphens and Dashes:
- When a speaker hesitates or
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- stutters, caption what is said
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Ellipses:
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Quotation Marks:
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- Do not use an ellipses to indicate that the sentence continues into the next caption
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- Use an ellipsis when there is a significant pause within a caption
- Use quotation marks only for on screen readings from a poem, book, play, journal, or letter
- Beginning quotation marks should be used for each caption of quoted material except for the last caption
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Spacing:
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Italics:
- Use italics:
- When a person is dreaming, thinking, or reminiscing
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- There is a background audio that is essential to the plot, such as a PA system or TV
- The first time a new word is being defined
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- There is off-screen dialogue, narrator, sound effects, or music
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- For foreign words and phrases, unless they are in an English dictionary
- When a particular word is heavily emphasized in speech
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SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC:
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Feature
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DO’s
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DON’Ts
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Additional Information
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Sound Effects and Music
Sound Effects
- Describe sound effects in present tense
- A description of sound effects, in brackets, should include the source of the sound. However, the source may be omitted if it can be clearly seen onscreen
- The described sound effect should be on the first line of the caption, separate from the onomatopoeia
- Described sound effects and onomatopoeia must be lowercased
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- Caption background sound effects only when they are essential to the
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- content
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Sound effects are sounds other than music, narration or dialogue.
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MUSIC
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Music
- Do not caption background music with a duration under 5 seconds
- A description(in brackets) should be used for instrumental/background music when it’s essential to the understanding of the program
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- If possible, the description should include the performer/composer and the title
- Use descriptions that indicate the mood
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- Avoid subjective words, such as “delightful”, ”beautiful,” or “melodic”
- Nonessential background music should never be captioned at the expense of dialog
- Do not caption background music with a duration under 5 seconds
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Lyrics
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- Caption the lyrics verbatim
- Lyrics should be introduced with the name of the artist and the title in brackets, if the presentation rate permits
- Caption lyrics with music icons
- Use one music icon at the beginning and end of each caption within a song, but use two music icons at the
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- end of the last line of a song
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SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS:
Feature | DO’s | DON’Ts | Additional Information |
Intonation, Play on words, and No Audio |
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Foreign Language, Dialect, Slang, and Phonetics |
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Reference:
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