Instagram Testing Cool Captions Feature to Remove the Hassle of Typing Long Texts in Stories

Auto Captions currently exists on YouTube, Facebook and select video conferencing platforms that generates subtitles in English to reduce the communication gap. Now, Instagram appears to be testing its own version of Auto Caption or Closed Captions for Stories but in a slightly different format. The new feature essentially generates text via audio inputs and then transforms it into a sticker that can be placed anywhere in the Instagram Story. The ‘Closed Captions’ can be useful when users want to post a text-heavy story.

As per a post by social media expert Matt Navarra, we can see the Instagram Story feature capturing the text from audio inputs and then users can enlarge the size of the sticker or change fonts. To enable Closed Captions, there’s now a dedicated button that is accessible in the quick panel. The panel appears when the user swipes up from the bottom of the screen. Instagram appears to be testing four text style options, including typewriter-esque block text, larger words for added emphasis and basic block letters. The accuracy of the generated text will, of course, be relative to the clarity of the audio. A report states that some users can see the Captions button, but it appears to be for ‘internal’ usage only.

Notably, Instagram added auto-captions for IGTV uploads last year. It transcribes the videos, and end-users can view auto-generated subtitles in English. Facebook has been offering auto-captions on video uploads since 2017, but more recently, it’s added the feature for Facebook Live and Workplace Live as well. Meanwhile, Instagram has expanded its toned-down app Instagram Lite to over 170 countries. The app is designed to work on 2G network and entry-level smartphones with low internal space. The Android app is only 2MB in size.

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