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Use case

Captions for vertical video

TikTok, Reels and Shorts are watched on phones, sound-off, in feeds where the interface covers the edges of your frame. Captions that work there follow different rules, this page is those rules, plus the workflow.

Burn captions in, subtitle files don't count

Short-form platforms let viewers switch platform-generated captions off in their app settings, and upload-time subtitle files barely exist for ordinary posts. If your captions are part of the video frames, every viewer sees them on every device, every time. That reliability is why burned-in captions are the default for 9:16 content and why the studio's MP4 export is the one that matters for this use case.

Place for the interface, not the frame

The feed UI rides your video: engagement icons on the right, username and app captions along the bottom, account controls at the top. Captions parked at the bottom edge get buried under the app's own caption box. Keep text in the middle band of the frame, centered horizontally, with margins on all sides and two lines maximum. What looks correct in a full-screen preview is the wrong test, preview it inside the app, where the chrome lives.

Style for a phone in daylight

Vertical video is watched at arm's length on screens under seven inches, often outdoors. Big text, high contrast, solid outlines and two-to-five-word lines are what survives those conditions, thin fonts and pastel-on-pastel do not. Pick a style from the 27 built into the studio rather than tuning from scratch; they were designed against these constraints, and you can override text and highlight colors to match your brand.

The workflow

  1. Open the studio and drop your finished 9:16 video (MP4, MOV or WEBM, up to 2 minutes free).
  2. Your video never leaves your device, only compressed audio is transcribed on the server and deleted right after, which matters for unreleased drops.
  3. Fix flagged words; short-form captions are read closely, and a wrong word is proportionally very visible.
  4. Pick a style, check placement, export the MP4, no watermark.
  5. Post the same file to TikTok, Reels and Shorts; captions travel with the video.

Why creators keep this in the browser

Captioning a short video is a minutes-long job when the tool opens instantly and asks for nothing. No account, no upload wait, no watermark, the free plan of OneDrop covers 2 minutes of audio per day (resets at 00:00 UTC), enough for a short or two each day. When you outgrow it, Pro raises the ceilings; the workflow stays identical.

Deeper reading: the guide to captions on TikTok, Reels and Shorts and the FAQ.