Captions that pop
Animated captions for Shorts and Reels: big, bold styles, many of them following your voice word by word, placed where people can read them.
Animated captions for Shorts and Reels keep people watching, because most social video plays without sound. ScreenCameo makes them on your Mac, and nothing is uploaded. This recipe goes from no captions to bold, readable ones in four stages.
Want every caption option? See the captions & transcript page. Making the clip itself? Start with Make a vertical clip.
1. Make the captions #
- Press Esc so nothing is selected, then click the Captions tab at the top, or press ShiftCmdT.
- Choose the Spoken language and click Generate Captions.
- A Captions lane appears on the timeline, and the captions show on the preview.
2. Pick an animated caption style #
In Style, click the For social clips chip. Its tiles are drawn exactly as they will export. These five suit Shorts, Reels and TikTok best:
| Style | The look |
|---|---|
| Word box | A coloured box follows the spoken word. |
| Karaoke fill | Words light up as you say them and stay lit. |
| One word | One big word at a time, popping in. Great for fast vertical clips. |
| Hormozi | Heavy capitals with a thick outline and a keyword in yellow, popping in two or three words at a time. |
| Neon | White text with a glow in the accent colour. |
- Click a style tile. The preview changes straight away.
- Under Look, pick an Accent that stands out against your background. Your brand colour is a good choice.
- Drag Size up until the captions are easy to read on a phone. It goes from 70% to 150% of the style’s size.
- Under Words, turn on Pick keywords automatically. Numbers, prices, names and key nouns get the Keyword colour.
- Turn on Add emoji to put a matching emoji on captions with words like launch, money or idea.
3. Put them where they’re seen #
TikTok, Reels and Shorts put buttons and text over the video. A safe zone keeps your captions out from under them.
- Making a Short, Reel or TikTok? Under Position → Safe zone for vertical video, click TikTok, Reels or Shorts.
- Pause to see the dashed frame that marks the safe area on the preview.
- For a wide video, Bottom under Place works well. To place a caption exactly, pause and drag it on the preview.
| Show captions | What you get |
|---|---|
| In the video | The captions are part of the exported video, so they show wherever you post it. Best for Shorts, Reels and TikTok. |
| Subtitles file only | A clean video. Save an .srt file under Export → Subtitles and upload it, for YouTube or a player. |
4. Clean up the words #
- Under Text, click a caption to fix a misheard word. Word timings are kept, so the highlight still follows your voice.
- Click Edit by Transcript…, then click Remove filler words. The button shows how many it found. It cuts every “um”, “uh” and “er” from the video and the captions.
- Under Words → Words to recognise, type your product names and click Add. After a comma, add what they’re often heard as. They’re spelled right the next time captions are made.
Shortcuts on this page#
| Keys | What it does |
|---|---|
| ShiftCmdT | Generate captions, or open the Captions tab |
| Esc | Deselect |
| CmdZ | Undo |
If something’s off#
- The spoken word doesn’t light up
- Check Highlight the spoken word under Look → Animation. Neon and Hormozi don’t follow each word; try Word box or Karaoke fill.
- Captions sit under TikTok’s buttons
- Pick TikTok under Position → Safe zone for vertical video.
- A product name is spelled wrong
- Fix it under Text, then add it to Words to recognise so the next captions get it right.
Checked against ScreenCameo 0.9.0 · October 20, 2026
Still stuck? Email support@screencameo.com. Replies come usually within 2 business days.
