ProPresenter live translation

Live captions over your slides in a language the room reads — and the same words on the speaker's stage display. Two methods, the real parameters, and what to check when nothing shows.

One disambiguation first. If you are after Bible translations — switching between ESV, NIV or Folkbibeln inside ProPresenter — this is the wrong page; Renewed Vision documents that feature. This page is about the other kind: someone speaks from your platform and the words appear on screen in Spanish, Arabic or Ukrainian while they are still talking.

Tolka Live is real-time AI speech translation for live events. It listens to your speech microphone and puts the translated text in a ProPresenter Prop, on the stage display, in OBS as live subtitles, and on the audience's phones via QR code. It runs in the browser — nothing to install on the ProPresenter machine. The setup guide has screenshots of every dialog below.

Two ways to add live captions to ProPresenter

ProPresenter live captions can come from two places: a hosted web page, or ProPresenter's own text engine. They differ in who draws the text and in what happens when the operator clears the screen.

Method 1 — a Prop with a web overlay (recommended)

Copy your caption link from the portal: https://tolkalive.se/overlay/?id=YOUR_ID. It is permanent — paste it once and it works at every future event.
Open the web app on the computer that takes the audio, pick your target languages and press Start. Captions publish to that link automatically.
In ProPresenter: Props panel → + → name the Prop Translation.
Edit the Prop, insert a web object (the globe icon), paste the caption link as the URL.
Stretch the web object across the whole slide. The caption sits at the bottom centre of the page, so a small box shows only its empty top.
Test before anyone is in the room: add &text=Test caption to the URL, show the Prop on the real projector and judge it from the back row. Adjust size and bottom until it reads and clears your lyrics, then remove the parameter.
Show the Prop when you want captions and clear it when you don't.

Why this one. A cleared Prop stays cleared — Clear All is final until a human shows it again — and captions persist across slide changes, because the Prop is its own layer. The page is hosted, so a stream team in another building can use the identical link.

Method 2 — native audience Message captions (the alternative)

Choose this when you want your own Message theme to draw the captions, or when the Prop layer is already busy.

Settings… → Network: turn on Enable Network and copy the exact Port shown. ProPresenter picks its own, and it differs between installations.
Messages panel → + Add Message, named exactly Translation.
Under Message Detail, type Translation in the token box and press Enter so it becomes a token. Style it with a Theme.
In Tolka Live's ProPresenter settings, enter the host (localhost, or the other computer's IP) and that port.

Every new caption shows the Message again, so an operator's clear is undone by the next sentence. Pause the captions in Tolka Live instead. That is why Method 1 is our default.

Messages and the stage display use ProPresenter's local network API, so that route runs on your own network; the Prop overlay needs nothing but the URL.

The stage display is its own output

The audience screen and the speaker's stage display are separate outputs you can drive independently.

Send to chooses what receives the captions: audience screen, stage display, or both. The usual setup is the Prop overlay for the room and Send to: Stage only for the platform — so the speaker reads the same words with nothing extra layered on the main screen.
A character cap trims each caption to what the stage layout holds. Stage Message elements are often two or three rows in a corner; cap the text and it stays in the box instead of pushing your next-item block off the layout.

On the ProPresenter side: Screens → Edit Layouts…, add the Stage Message element and size it where the speaker looks. Without that element, nothing appears there.

Overlay parameters

The caption page takes a few optional parameters — the first after /overlay/ uses ?, the rest use &. Preview them in a browser tab: https://tolkalive.se/overlay/?id=YOUR_ID&size=4&bg=none

Parameter	What it does	Example
`text`	Shows fixed text instead of the live feed — for testing.	`&text=Test`
`size`	Text size in vh (percent of screen height).	`&size=4`
`color`	Text colour, hex without the `#`.	`&color=ffffff`
`bg`	Backdrop behind the text: a hex value, or `none` for fully transparent.	`&bg=none`
`bgopacity`	Backdrop opacity, 0 to 1. Default 0.45.	`&bgopacity=0.7`
`bottom`	Distance from the bottom edge, in vh. Raise it to clear a lower third.	`&bottom=12`
`lang`	Which language channel this overlay follows.	`&lang=es`

Before the doors open, speak a sentence into the microphone the service will actually use — the mixer feed, not the laptop mic — and hit Clear All to confirm the captions stay gone. With a stage display, speak a long sentence and set the character cap to fit.

If the captions do not appear

Blank Prop. Is translation running, status green? Add &text= to the URL to tell a link problem from an audio problem.
An empty band across the slide. The web object does not cover the full slide. A "Missing ?id=" line means the link lost its id — paste it again from the portal.
Frozen text while the app still translates. Hide and show the Prop; the page reloads and catches up.
Method 2. Stage but no audience: the Message is not named exactly Translation, or has no token. Audience but no stage: the Stage Message element is missing from the layout. Yellow status: wrong host or port, or Network not enabled.
A short gap every ten minutes or so. Normal — the cloud session rotates and reconnects.

Languages, hours and cost

75+ target languages, source language detected automatically, and up to five running in parallel from one microphone — each with its own permanent link and QR code, so the Prop can show one language while the room reads the others on their phones, with no per-listener cost.

Every plan includes every output on this page and they differ only in hours: from €55 a month for 15 hours excluding VAT, or a one-time Event licence if you only need a single conference covered. New accounts get 15 minutes free without a credit card. Details on the pricing page.

AI translation is good, not perfect. Names, numbers and unusual expressions can come out wrong, especially with unclear audio or several people talking at once. Treat the captions as support for the room rather than certified interpretation, and keep professional interpreters where accuracy is legally or medically critical.

Questions from ProPresenter operators

Do the captions survive a slide change or a Clear All?

With the Prop overlay, yes. The Prop is its own layer, so captions keep running through slide changes, and a cleared Prop stays cleared until someone shows it again. The Message route differs: every new caption shows the Message again, so a clear is undone by the next sentence.

Can the audience screen and the stage display show different things?

Yes, they are separate outputs. A Send to selector decides which receives the captions — audience, stage, or both — and a character cap keeps the stage text inside the rows your layout has.

Can we show two languages at the same time?

Up to five run in parallel from one microphone, and each language has its own permanent caption link. A second Prop, with a web object pointed at the second link, shows that language on screen — and the room can read any running language on their own phones.

Does Tolka Live have to run on the ProPresenter computer?

For the Prop overlay, no. The caption link is a hosted page on tolkalive.se, so the translating computer can sit anywhere with a stable connection — which is how remote stream teams use the same overlay. The Message and stage-display route uses the local network API, so it has to reach ProPresenter over your network.

More on accuracy, privacy, the AI voice and how hours are counted in the FAQ; the rest of the setup is in the guide.

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