Why short-form captions look like this
Feeds autoplay on mute, and viewers decide within a second or two whether to keep watching. Short bursts of two or three words can be read in a glance, the heavy outline stays legible over any background, and the moving highlight pulls the eye along at speaking pace. It is the opposite of broadcast captions, which aim to be unobtrusive.
Getting the placement right
On TikTok, the bottom of the screen is covered by the caption text, sound name and buttons, and the right edge by the like and share buttons. Keep captions around the middle to lower-middle of the frame; this preset starts at 72% of the height. Check the preview with the “Vertical position” slider before rendering.
TikTok's own auto captions vs burned-in captions
TikTok and Instagram can generate their own captions, but viewers can hide them, you cannot style them, and they do not travel with the video when you post the same clip to other platforms. Burned-in captions look identical everywhere. TikTok does not accept SRT uploads, so a burned-in video is the only way to use your corrected captions there.
Questions people ask
How do I add word-by-word captions to a TikTok?
Drop your clip, leave “Word-by-word captions” ticked and press “Generate subtitles”. Adjust the look in the Style tab, then Export › “Render captioned video” and upload the result to TikTok.
Will the video have a watermark?
No. The captioned video is rendered in your browser and has no watermark or branding.
Can I change the highlight colour and font size?
Yes. The Style tab has text and highlight colour, size and vertical position; the preview updates as you change them.
Does rendering reduce video quality?
The video is re-encoded at up to 1080p and 8 Mbit/s, which is above what TikTok and Reels keep after their own compression.