How to Find TED-Ed Video Transcripts

TED-Ed lessons are short animated videos, and many of them come with captions that can be read as a full transcript. A transcript helps you study a lesson, quote it accurately, follow along in another language or make the content accessible. This guide shows where to look for the text, how to copy it cleanly and how to check that it matches the narration.

Before you start

Finding a transcript is an online task. The text is provided by the platform that hosts the video, so you need a browser and an internet connection. You do not need to download the video or install any software, and video settings such as bitrate, frame rate or recording format have no effect on the transcript.

• The exact title of the TED-Ed lesson, or the video already open in your browser.
• A desktop or laptop browser. Transcript options are easier to reach there than in mobile apps, where availability varies by app version.
• A plain text editor or document app if you plan to save the text.
• The language you need. Transcripts exist only in languages for which captions have been published for that lesson.

If you intend to reuse the text outside personal study, for example in published material, check TED's current terms of use first. A transcript being visible on the page does not by itself grant reuse rights.

Step-by-step instructions

TED-Ed lessons are commonly watched on the TED-Ed YouTube channel, and some lessons also appear in the main TED talks library. The steps below cover both places. Interface labels change over time, so look for an option named Transcript or Show transcript rather than relying on an exact position on the page.

On YouTube in a desktop browser

• 1. Open the TED-Ed lesson and let the page finish loading.
• 2. Expand the video description. In recent layouts the transcript option is usually listed near the end of the expanded description.
• 3. Select Show transcript. A panel with time-stamped lines opens next to or below the video.
• 4. If the panel offers a language selector, choose the language you need.
• 5. If you want plain text without times, look for an option in the panel to hide timestamps. If none is shown, keep the timestamps and remove them later in your editor.
• 6. Select the text in the panel, copy it and paste it into your text editor.

In the TED talks library

• 1. Search the TED library for the lesson title.
• 2. If the lesson is listed there, open its page and look for a Transcript section or tab.
• 3. Choose the transcript language if a selector is available.
• 4. Copy the text into your editor.

Copying text is fully reversible: nothing changes on the video or your account. If the result looks wrong, close the panel, change the language or timestamp setting and copy again.

Check the output

Play a few passages of the lesson while reading your copied text, ideally the opening, a section in the middle and the ending. This quickly shows whether the transcript is complete and belongs to the right video.

• Source: on YouTube, a caption track marked as auto-generated is produced by speech recognition and can contain misheard words, missing punctuation and wrong names. Prefer a track that is not marked that way when one exists.
• Language: confirm the selected language is the one you need, not a default or translated track.
• Completeness: make sure the text runs to the end of the narration and that no lines were left out when you selected the panel.
• Formatting: caption lines are split for on-screen reading, so sentences may break mid-line. Join lines in your editor if you need readable paragraphs.
• Character encoding: when saving text in languages with accents or non-Latin scripts, save the file as UTF-8 so characters display correctly.

Keep in mind that a transcript contains only the spoken narration. Text drawn into the animation, on-screen labels and sound effects may not appear in it.

Common problems and next steps

• No transcript option: the lesson may have no published captions, or the option may be hidden in the mobile app or in a narrow browser window. Try a desktop browser with a wider window, then check whether the lesson is also available in the TED library.
• Only an auto-generated track: use it as a draft and correct it against the audio. Pay special attention to scientific terms, historical names and numbers.
• Your language is missing: captions in other languages depend on volunteer translation and publication for each lesson. Check the language list again later or use the original-language transcript.
• Timestamps in the copied text: hide them in the transcript panel if that option exists, or remove them with find and replace in your editor.
• Garbled characters after saving: reopen the file and save it again with UTF-8 encoding.
• Text does not match what you hear: confirm you selected the transcript for the same video, since reuploads, translations and similar lessons can have different text.

If you need the transcript for accessibility, captions shown directly on the video are often more practical than a separate document. Turn on subtitles in the player and pick the same language track you checked above.