Captions for Videos: A Practical Guide

A good caption shows the right words at the moment they are said, in a place and size a viewer can read on a phone. For short clips on TikTok, Reels and Shorts, that usually means captions burned into the picture, a few words at a time, with the spoken word highlighted. Auk Video writes them for you from what is said, and you check the words, pick a look and export.

This guide covers what makes a caption readable, which kind to use, and how to get captioned clips out of your own video in Auk Video.

Why captions matter

A viewer scrolling a feed often has the sound off, in a queue, on a train, in bed next to someone sleeping. Without captions, a talking head with the sound off is a person moving their mouth, and the viewer scrolls on. With them, the viewer can follow the point before deciding to turn the sound on.

Captions also make your video usable for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and easier to follow for anyone watching in a second language or through a strong accent. They work for you as well: a caption that shows the first sentence clearly is part of the hook.

Open or closed captions?

Captions come in two kinds.

• Closed captions live in a separate track or file next to the video. The viewer turns them on or off, and the player draws them in its own font. You can correct them without touching the video.
• Open captions, also called burned-in captions, are part of the picture. Everyone sees them, on every app and every device, and they look exactly as you designed them. To change a word you export the video again.

For long videos on YouTube, a closed caption track is the standard: viewers expect the CC button. For short vertical clips, open captions are what the feeds have settled on, because the style is part of the clip's look and the caption has to show up even when the viewer never touches a setting.

Auk Video makes open captions: when a clip has captions, they are burned into the video it exports, in the style you chose.

What makes a caption readable

Captions that help and captions that get in the way differ mostly in small choices.

• Few words at a time. A whole sentence across the screen is too much to read while watching a face. Two to four words per group keeps the text in step with the voice.
• The spoken word stands out. Highlighting the word being said (a colour, a box, a fill) pulls the eye along the line at the pace of the speech.
• Large and high contrast. Light text with a dark outline or box reads over any footage. Thin type and pale colours vanish against a bright background.
• Away from the platform's buttons. TikTok, Reels and Shorts put their like, comment and share buttons on the right and the caption and account name at the bottom. Text placed in the bottom right gets covered.
• Out of the speaker's face. A caption over the mouth or eyes hides the part of the frame people are watching. When two people are stacked one above the other, the line between them is a natural place for the text.
• The words are right. One misheard word in a short clip can change the meaning or make the speaker look careless. A name, a brand or a technical term is where automatic transcription most often slips.

How to add captions to your videos with Auk Video

Auk Video takes your long video, finds the moments that work as clips, and cuts each into a vertical clip with word by word captions. You do not write a caption file or sync anything by hand.

1. Open Home, paste the link to your video and press Get clips, or press Upload a file and choose the video.
2. Wait for Analyzing… to change to Make clips. Leave Language on Auto to let Auk Video detect the spoken language, or pick it yourself.
3. Open the Captions tab and click a caption style. Use the arrows to see the rest. Karaoke Fill, which fills each word as it is said, is the default; Minimal shows plain white subtitles, and the others highlight the spoken word in different ways.
4. Check the credit cost next to the button and press Make clips.
5. Clips appear on the project page as they are made, each already captioned. You can close the tab; Auk Video emails you when they are ready.

Behind step 5, Auk Video writes down every word with its timing, then uses that timing to show each caption group and highlight each word as it is spoken. How Auk Video makes clips explains each step. Getting started covers which videos you can use.

Check the words before you post

Open each clip you plan to post in the editor and read the Transcript panel on the left while the clip plays. It is the same text the captions show.

1. Double-click a wrong word, type the right one and press Enter. The word keeps its timing and the video is not touched.
2. To find a word fast, type it in Search transcript at the top of the panel.
3. Look hardest at names, brands, numbers and jargon.

The transcript can also shorten the clip: clicking a word and choosing Delete cuts it from the video and the captions, and Remove fillers takes out um, uh and similar words in English. Fixing a wrong word in your captions covers each of these.

Pick a style that fits the clip

Auk Video has fourteen caption styles, from plain white subtitles to word boxes, highlighter fills and one word at a time. The full list, with what each is suited to, is on Caption styles. To change the style of one clip, open it in the editor, click Captions on the right and pick a style on the Presets tab.

A few rules of thumb for choosing:

• Talking head or podcast: a style that highlights the spoken word, so the eye follows the voice.
• Tutorials and tips: a calmer style with a box or card, so key terms are easy to read and the screen is not busy.
• Fast hooks and punchlines: fewer words at a time, even one, so each word lands on its beat.
• Brand look: the same style on every clip. Save it in a template (below) instead of picking it each time.

Whatever the style, check the clip on a phone, at phone size. A caption that looks fine on a laptop can be too small, or sit too low, once the platform's buttons are on top of it.

Adjust size, position and pacing

The Font tab of the editor's Captions panel fine-tunes the style you picked:

• Position moves the captions up or down: Top, Upper, Middle, Lower, Bottom, or Auto, which places them by the layout, for example on the line between two people in a split.
• Size makes the text bigger or smaller.
• Words per group sets how many words show at once.
• Text case shows the words as written, all capitals or all small letters, without changing the transcript.
• Colors sets the text, the active word, the word box and the caption box.
• Font changes the typeface.

If the speaker's face sits where the caption is, the crop can move too: Adjusting the crop shows how.

Use the same captions on every project

Picking the style, size and position clip by clip gets old. In Templates, open Captions under Look, turn it on, pick a style and save. When you make clips, pick that template on the Template tab and every clip starts with your captions. Editing a template later does not change clips you already made. Templates and intros has the details.

Export and post

Press Download in the clip player or the editor. You get a vertical 1080 by 1920 MP4 with the captions burned in, along with the crop and any text you added (Exporting a clip). Exporting is free. A caption edit reaches the file the next time you export, so fix the words before you download.

From the editor you can also press Publish to post the clip to TikTok, YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels (Publishing your clips).

Because the captions are already in the picture, leave the platform's own automatic captions off for that clip. Two sets of captions on top of each other are harder to read than none.

What about the platforms' automatic captions?

Platforms such as YouTube can generate captions for a video you upload. These are closed captions drawn by the player in its own style, so you choose neither the look nor where they sit, and a viewer has to have them switched on. YouTube's own help page says its automatic captions are machine-generated, that their quality may vary, and that a video may get none when it has poor sound, overlapping speakers or more than one language (YouTube Help, Use automatic captioning, checked 12 November 2026). They also caption the video you uploaded as it is: they do not find the moments worth clipping or turn a wide video vertical.

Questions people ask

Are captions and subtitles the same thing?

Not exactly. Subtitles usually carry the dialogue, often translated for viewers who speak another language. Captions are written for viewers who cannot hear the audio and can also note sounds. On short-form apps people use the two words for the same thing: text on screen that matches what is said.

Can I get a caption file instead of burned-in captions?

Not from Auk Video today. Its clips come out with the captions burned into the video, which is what TikTok, Reels and Shorts viewers see in their feeds.

Which languages does Auk Video caption?

Auk Video transcribes the language spoken in your video, detected automatically with Language on Auto, or the one you pick. Remove fillers works in English only today; the captions themselves follow the spoken language.

Do captions help a video get more views?

Nobody can promise that. Captions make a clip easier to follow with the sound off and usable by more people, which gives the content a fair chance; what it says still decides whether people watch.

How do I fix a caption after I posted the clip?

Correct the word in the editor, export again, and upload the new file. Burned-in captions are part of the picture, so the posted video does not change on its own.