Captions are one of the simplest ways to make a short video easier to watch. Plenty of people scroll with the sound off — on a train, in an office, late at night — and even with sound on, captions help viewers follow fast or accented speech.
Here’s how to add them well.
Burned-in captions or a subtitle file?
There are two kinds of captions:
- Burned-in (open) captions are drawn into the video itself. They look exactly the same everywhere, can be styled however you like, and can’t be turned off.
- Subtitle files (like SRT) are separate text files uploaded alongside the video. The platform draws them, viewers can switch them off, and search engines and platforms can read the text.
For Shorts, Reels and TikToks, burned-in captions are the norm: the styling is part of the look, and you don’t depend on each app’s own caption settings. If you also post to YouTube, uploading an SRT file as well gives YouTube the text of what’s said.
Make them readable on a phone
- Big enough. Captions are read on a small screen at arm’s length. If you have to squint at them on your own phone, they’re too small.
- High contrast. White or yellow text with a dark outline or shadow reads on almost any background.
- A few words at a time. Two short lines at most. Long blocks of text compete with the video for attention.
- In sync. Captions that appear early or late are worse than none. Each line should appear as it’s spoken.
Put them where the app won’t cover them
Every short-form app draws its own buttons and text over your video: the caption and username near the bottom, like and share buttons down the right side. Captions placed too low or too far right get hidden.
A safe default is the lower-middle of the frame — above the bottom strip, away from the right edge — and clear of faces. To see exactly what each app covers on your own video, drop it into our free safe zone checker.
Pick a style that suits the video
- Simple, static captions suit interviews, lectures and serious topics. They stay out of the way.
- Word-by-word or highlighted captions, where each word lights up as it’s spoken, add energy to commentary, storytelling and fast-paced clips.
- Bold, high-impact styles suit punchy, entertaining content — but use them consistently, so your clips look like a series.
Whatever you choose, stick to one or two styles across your channel. It makes your clips recognisable in the feed.
Check the words
Automatic transcription is good but not perfect. Names, brands, jargon and noisy audio cause mistakes. Read your captions once before posting — a wrong word in large text is very visible.
Captions with ClipIQ
ClipIQ captions every clip it makes from your video. Captions are burned in, and each clip also comes with an SRT file. You choose a caption style by seeing it — each one is previewed on a sample line before you pick it. The free plan uses a clean classic style; the paid plans add animated word-by-word styles and styles of your own design.
Upload a video or paste a YouTube link, and the clips come back cut, reframed to vertical and captioned.