Where to find them
Open Branding in the sidebar. Captions is the first group on the page.
- Caption style: None, then the fifteen styles. A line under the picker describes the style you chose.
- Caption settings: one box with every control for the chosen style, in groups you open and close. Words holds font, size, casing and letter spacing. Colors holds Highlight and Inactive. Next comes the style's own group, such as Box, Pill or Glow. Position holds vertical position, words per view and two lines. Shadow appears for the styles that have one.
- Custom font and Words we say come after, on Growth and up.
Words and Colors start open. A closed group shows its current settings beside its name. The live preview beside the settings uses a frame from your last video. The app's Branding page has the same Caption settings box.
Each style keeps its own settings. Change the size while Anthem is picked and only Anthem changes. Rider keeps whatever you set for Rider. A style you have never adjusted starts at its own defaults, and picking a style again brings back what you set for it. This works the same in the app.
Every slider has a box beside it for an exact number. A small blue dot beside a setting means it differs from the default. Use style default at the bottom of a group puts that group back. A setting a style can't use is hidden. A style that shows one word at a time, such as Highlight Box, has no words per view or two lines, and the Position group says so.
Changes apply to your next video. Clips you already have keep the captions they were made with. To change the words on one finished clip, see fixing a caption.
Caption styling comes with Starter and up. On Free, clips are captioned in Karaoke with a blue highlight and three words on screen. You choose Captions on or None, and the other controls show which plan includes them.
The fifteen styles
The styles differ in more than typeface. One moves a shape along the line, one types, one stacks, one glows, and one turns the whole thing into dark words on a light card.
| Style | What it does |
|---|---|
| Anthem | Two-word statements that land large. Lines alternate white and your highlight color, so a run of them reads as a rhythm. |
| Rider | The line holds still and a rounded pill rides along it, word by word. |
| Typewriter | Characters type onto a bar behind a cursor. The bar widens as the line fills. |
| Ladder | Words stack down the left edge, and the word that matters is set large. Small joining words tuck onto the line below. |
| Neon | The words are a lit tube: a colored glow around a hot core. |
| Hollow | The line stands as outlines, and each word fills in solid as it is spoken. |
| Sticker | Dark words on a tilted light card with a tape tab. The only style that turns light and dark around. |
| Drift | Small, widely spaced capitals that fade in and settle. The quietest of the newer styles. |
| Editorial | All-bold, tightly spaced words with a strong dark halo. Key words are set larger. |
| Karaoke | The default. A few words sit on screen and each lights up as it is spoken. |
| Word Pop | One word at a time, cut hard. |
| Highlight Box | One word at a time, on a filled box. |
| Boxed | The whole line on a solid box. The easiest to read over busy footage. |
| Build Up | Words appear one by one and stay, so the sentence builds on screen. |
| Clean | Plain text with no highlight. |
Word Pop and Highlight Box show one word at a time, so words per view does not apply to them.
Two lines, under Position, breaks every caption across two lines. It works with any style that can take it, and each style remembers its own choice. Word Pop, Highlight Box and Ladder can't take it, because they already put one word on each line. The Position group says so when one of them is picked.
Settings a style brings with it
Every style has the Words, Colors and Position groups. Seven styles add a group of their own, named for what it styles: Box, Pill, Background bar, Stack and Highlighted word, Editorial, Glow and Sticker. The group appears when you pick the style. Your settings stay saved for that style while you try another.
| Style | Its own settings |
|---|---|
| Boxed, Highlight Box | Under Box: Box color, Width, Height and Corner radius. Each of the two styles keeps its own box shape. |
| Rider | Under Pill: Roundness, Width, Height and Text on pill. |
| Typewriter | Under Background bar: Side padding, Height, Opacity, Bar color and Corner radius. |
| Ladder | Under Stack: Horizontal position (how far in from the left) and Line height. Under Highlighted word: Which word is set large (Pick the strongest word on screen, Only the words I list or Never highlight), its Highlight color, and Words to highlight. |
| Editorial | Under Editorial: Text color, Shadow color, Shadow strength, Line height and Letter spacing. |
| Neon | Under Glow: Glow color and Glow opacity. |
| Sticker | Under Sticker: Angle, Width, Height, Corner radius, Background color, Text color and Card shadow. |
If Ladder sets the wrong word large, switch Which word to Only the words I list. Then type the words you want in Words to highlight, separated by commas, for example grace, mercy, cross.
Shadow, box shapes, text on the pill, and the sticker's text
- Shadow appears for Anthem, Typewriter, Ladder, Drift, Karaoke, Word Pop, Highlight Box, Boxed, Build Up and Clean. It is the soft dark shadow under the words that keeps them readable on bright footage. The switch beside the group's name turns it on or off, and turning it back on brings back your last strength. Strength runs from 5% to 100%, and Color sets its color. Each style keeps its own shadow. Editorial and Neon have their own shadow and glow controls. Rider, Hollow and Sticker draw no shadow under their words.
- Box shapes. Every style that draws a shape behind its words lets you size it. Width is the space either side of the words, Height the space above and below, and Corner radius runs from square at 0 to fully round. Each starts at the shape the style draws by default. A corner larger than half the shape's height makes the ends fully round.
- Text on pill (Rider) is the color of the word under the pill. It starts dark so the word reads on your Highlight color. Change it if your highlight is dark too.
- Text color (Sticker) starts on Automatic: your Inactive color, switched to dark on a light card, or to white on a dark card, only when it would be hard to read. Pick a color to use it exactly as chosen, or tick Automatic to go back.
- Card shadow (Sticker) sets how dark the hard shadow under the card is, from 0 (none) to 1.
The finished captions use the same layout and spacing as the Branding preview. Letter spacing, under Words, works on every style except Editorial, which has its own. Check your colors and spacing over a frame from your own video before your next run.
Color
Two colors do most of the work:
- Highlight, the word being spoken. Yellow by default on paid plans, because it shows up on almost any background. Blue on Free.
- Inactive, everything else. White by default.
Boxed and Highlight Box add a third, Box color, under Box.
Three styles draw their words in Inactive: Neon lights its letters in it, Hollow draws its outlines in it, and Sticker sets its words in it. When Inactive would be hard to read on the Sticker card, the words switch to dark or white. Inactive starts white and the card starts light, so Sticker's words start dark.
If you are matching brand colors, check the result over your own footage in the preview, not against white. A color that looks great in a brand guide can vanish against a dim stage.
Font, size and casing
Twelve fonts are built in: Integral (the default), Anton, Bebas Neue, Archivo Black, Montserrat, Inter, Heros, Poppins, Oswald, Sora, DM Serif Display and Playfair Display. On Growth and up, upload your own .ttf or .otf under Custom font. It then appears in the Font list as Custom.
Size is a slider from 1% to 12% of the frame's short side. A percentage looks the same on every clip. The default is 4.2%, and the app has the same slider.
Casing can be UPPERCASE (the default), lowercase, Title Case, or As spoken, which keeps the words as they were transcribed.
Words on screen at once
Words per view, under Position, runs from 1 to 6. The default is 4 on paid plans and 3 on Free. Fewer words means bigger text and more changes. More words means a calmer read. Four suits most videos, where sentences run long.
Where they sit
Vertical position, under Position, moves the captions anywhere from 20% to 85% of the way down the frame. The default is 55%. You can also drag the captions up or down on the preview, or click them and use the up and down arrow keys.
The range stops short of both edges, because social apps draw their own buttons, names and progress bars there, over your words. If you place a logo, check in the preview that it doesn't sit on the captions. If you are unsure, keep the captions near the middle.
Words we say Growth and up
Every team has words automatic captions get wrong: a guest's surname, a product name, a Yoruba or Igbo phrase, the name of your weekly show. Words we say, on Branding, is your list of them. ReelUse listens for them before it writes the captions of every new video.
- On the website, type a word or name under Add a word and press Add, or Enter. One word or name at a time.
- If you know what it gets turned into, press Fix how it is heard on that word and type the misheard form. The word then shows heard as that form, and ReelUse corrects it too.
- It has its own Save button on the website. Press Save words when you are done. The rest of Branding saves on its own, and it doesn't save this list.
- In the app, type the word, and the misheard form under Heard as (optional) if you know it, then press Add word. It saves straight away.
- The list holds up to 200 entries. Each can be a word or a short phrase.
- Corrections you make by hand on a single clip are left alone.
Fill it in once, and the same names come out right every week.
When a caption looks wrong
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| A word is misheard on one clip | Open the clip's ··· menu and choose Edit captions. Fix a word, remove one or add a missing one. It doesn't count toward your allowance. See fixing a caption. |
| The same name is wrong every week | Add it to Words we say. On the website, press Save words after. |
| The clip starts or ends in the wrong place | Open the clip's ··· menu and choose Trim / extend. See trimming a clip. |
| The color vanishes against your footage | Change Highlight or Inactive, or pick Boxed for a solid box behind the words. |
| The words are too small or too big | Move the Size slider and check it in the preview. |
| You changed a setting and an old clip stayed the same | Changes apply to your next video. To remake a whole video with them, use Run again, which counts toward your allowance. |
| You want no captions at all | Choose None under Caption style. It works on every plan. |