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If you have captions or subtitles for your video content, you can use your JWP dashboard to add side-loaded captions.
In addition to providing your viewers with text that explains the audio aspects of your video content, adding captions to your online video content can provide several additional benefits:
Improved video SEO
Increased content retention
Increased engagement with autoplay content
Environment-independent content viewing
Legal compliance
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If you are a developer or have developer resources you can [add captions](🔗) directly in the player code.<br />
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## Side-loaded captions
To add side-loaded captions to a video in your JWP dashboard, you either add a side-loaded caption file to your video or create a caption track for your video from within the dashboard.
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### Add a side-loaded caption file to your video

The JW Platform does not validate caption files on upload. Make sure to validate your .vtt files before uploading.
Tracks tab
From your JWP dashboard <a href="https://dashboard.jwplayer.com/p/media" target="_blank">Media Library</a>, click the name of the video.
On right side of the page beneath the preview player, click the **Tracks** tab.
In the **Captions** section, click **Manage**. The **Captions Tracks** panel appears.
Click **Upload**. The file picker appears.
Select one or several .vtt files from your computer. Once uploaded and processed, the captions appear in the **Captions Tracks** panel in a **Published** state.

JWP uses the name of the caption file as the track label that a viewer will see in the player's caption menu.
Click **Close**.
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### Create a caption track for your video
Tracks Editor page
Use the following steps to create a caption track:
From your JWP dashboard <a href="https://dashboard.jwplayer.com/p/media" target="_blank">Media Library</a>, click the name of the video. The details page for the video appears.
On right side of the page beneath the preview player, click the **Tracks** tab.
In the **Captions** section, click **Manage**. The **Captions Tracks** panel appears.
Click **Create**. The **New Track** creation page appears.
In the **Track Label** field, enter the name of the caption track.
In the **Language** field, enter the language of the captions. You can click the **Lang List** link to see a list of language code to enter in the field.
Under **Captions**, click **+ Add Caption**. The captions settings appear.
In the top timecode field, set the start time. This is the point at which the caption should first appear on screen.
In the bottom timecode field, set the end time. This is the point at which the caption should disappear.
In the caption text box, enter the text of the caption.
Click **Done**. The caption appears in the caption list.

Click <img src="https://files.readme.io/4fdad3c-caption-preview-play-button.png" height="25px" /> in the preview player to preview the captions.
Repeat steps 7-11 to add another caption.
Click **Save**.
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### Change the status of a side-loaded caption
Tracks Editor page
By default, JWP publishes processed captions associated with a media item.
Use the following steps to change the publish status of caption:
From your JWP dashboard <a href="https://dashboard.jwplayer.com/p/media" target="_blank">Media Library</a>, click the name of the video. The details page for the video appears.
On right side of the page beneath the preview player, click the **Tracks** tab.
In the **Captions** section, click **Manage**. The **Captions Tracks** panel appears.
Hover over the caption track row, click **⋯ > Unpublish**. The caption track is unpublished and placed into a **Draft** state.

If the track is already in the **Draft** state, the caption track is in an unpublished state. Hover over the caption track row, click **⋯ > Publish**. The caption track is published.
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## Embedded captions
### Add a video with embedded captions
<a href="/platform/docs/vdh-upload-videos#register-videos" target="_blank">Register your videos</a>.
In step 3, be sure to select **No, don't host media on import** when registering your videos. If video content with embedded captions is uploaded to your JWP account, the embedded captions may be removed during the transcoding process.
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