Want to use Vimeo like a pro? You’re not alone. Here’s some useful information on the platform and a walkthrough of how to add closed captions or add subtitles to your Vimeo videos to help get you started.

In general, Vimeo tends to attract a supportive community of users who offer constructive feedback on videos. It’s also free of ads, unlike its competitors. After YouTube, Vimeo is the second most popular video hosting platform in the world with 70% of viewers streaming from outside of the US.

In 2014, Vimeo made it possible to add captions and subtitles to your video content and doing so is pretty simple. To add captions to a video on Vimeo, you will first need a caption file. You can engage a professional captioning company to create a file, or use one of the do-it-yourself captioning sites.

What caption file formats does Vimeo support?

WebVTT (.vtt) is preferred, but several formats are compatible, including SubRip (.srt files), DXFP/TTML (.dxfp), Scenarist (.scc), SAMI (.SAMI).

How to Add Captions or Subtitles to Vimeo Videos

1. Upload your video to Vimeo

Tip: Give your video a title, description, and tags to make it easy to find

2. Upload your video to Rev.com to get a caption file. You can also pull videos directly from your Vimeo account with Rev’s Vimeo integration

Tip: Vimeo recommends formatting captions as WebVTT files whenever possible

3. Navigate to the video you want to caption or subtitle in Vimeo. Under the “Distribution” menu in Vimeo, select “Subtitles”

4. Click the + button next to “subtitles and captions”

5. Select the language of your captions or subtitles and under the ‘type’ drop-down menu select either “captions” or “subtitles”

6. After choosing your language and type, select “Choose file” and select the Rev.com caption or subtitle file once it’s delivered to you and downloaded

7. Display your captions by clicking the CC icon at the bottom of the video player to toggle captions on and off

Rev now offers burned-in captions (open captions). Just check the “burned-in captions” box at checkout and you’ll receive a video with permanent, hard-coded captions added straight to your videos. Also available for foreign language subtitles!

What type of content is hosted on Vimeo?

Known as “the creative person’s hosting platform”, Vimeo is commonly used for music videos, documentaries, and other types of videos with artistic elements.

Is Vimeo a free or paid video hosting platform?

Vimeo offers four membership levels, each with additional storage, features, and controls: Basic (free), Plus ($7/mo.), Pro ($20/mo.), and Business ($50/mo.).

How Rev Works with Vimeo

As an approved captions and subtitles partner of Vimeo, we offer a full-service caption integration with their video hosting platform.