Caption styling combines the selected subtitle style with ordinary typography, appearance, stroke, shadows, and layer effects.
Typography
Choose font family and style, size, line height, letter spacing, alignment, and direction. Test the longest page in the caption sequence. A style that looks elegant on two short words can fail on a place name and full phrase.
Contrast layers
Use one or more of these deliberately:
- Text color with strong luminance separation.
- A subtitle style that renders a restrained background-like treatment, when available.
- Stroke for local edge contrast.
- One or two soft shadows for separation.
- A selected caption style that distinguishes the current token.
The caption inspector does not provide an independent background color, radius, or padding control. For a directly authorable caption box, create a solid or frame beneath the caption and time the two layers together.
Box geometry
Place captions inside a consistent safe region and avoid lower thirds, faces, and important scene detail. The box width determines wrapping; its height must accommodate the configured maximum lines and line height.
Style selection
The Style control reads the names exposed by the subtitle library and normalizes invalid or missing values to the default. Preview each candidate on actual transcript pages before choosing it.
Accessibility targets
- Keep a stable location unless picture content requires a deliberate move.
- Avoid rapid page changes and single-frame words.
- Use sufficient contrast over both bright mist and dark foliage.
- Preserve exact spoken meaning.
- Do not rely on color alone to mark the active word.
Build captions at full output size, then review at the smallest likely viewing size. Fine strokes and shadows can disappear when scaled down.
