Captions in the editor

Shotz writes captions from the speech in the video and audio on your timeline, a few words at a time, in step with what’s said.

Making captions

1. Choose Captions on the editor’s left.
2. Pick a look from the gallery, each drawn over a sample with its name under it. If your workspace has a brand, its look comes first. Then come Word pop, Box, Outline, Plain, Pop, Karaoke, One word, Hype, Comic, Neon, Bubble, Headline, Marker, Arcade, Monster block, Typewriter and Subtitles. Some set the words in capitals, and some light up or enlarge the word being said.
3. Choose Where they sit: Top, Middle or Bottom.
4. Choose Words at a time: Auto (each look’s own count), 1, 2, 3 or A line.
5. Choose Make captions from the voice.

They go on a track called Captions, one text clip per line. Making them is free.

Speech is transcribed after a file is uploaded, which takes a minute or two. If Shotz says No speech found yet, wait a moment and try again. Add video or audio with speech first if there’s none on the timeline.

Changing them

• Look and place: pick another look or Where in the panel and every caption changes at once.
• A word: choose Text on the left, then click the caption on the timeline and fix it in the box. See Text and titles.
• Timing: drag a caption’s ends, or move it, like any clip.
• After you’ve cut the video: choose Make them again from the voice. The old captions are replaced, so fixes you made to them go too. Titles you put on the Captions track stay. If you cut by words in Transcript, captions close up with the picture, so they stay in step. See Edit by transcript.

Captions leave out filler words such as “um” and “uh”. They also come only from what’s heard: a clip that’s muted or at no volume, or on a muted track, isn’t captioned. So after you use Detach sound on a clip, each line is captioned once, from the sound.

Undo puts back what was there before, in one step.

Turning them off

The switch at the top of the panel turns the Captions track on or off. You can also hide it with its eye switch on the timeline.

When you export

In Export, choose whether captions are Burned in to the picture, saved as a separate .srt file, or left Off. Captions on its own downloads just the .srt. Only the captions go in it: a title, sticker or picture you put on the Captions track isn’t one. See Export a video.

For captions on a file without opening the editor, use the Captions tool in Tools. See Add captions to a video.