Auto captions, timed to every word
Big words on Shorts, calm subtitles on long videos, in your language.
Every video TallyReel makes comes with captions burned in, timed word by word to the voice. You pick one of 7 caption styles when you make it (Word highlight, Plain, Orange box, Pop, One word, Bold outline, Neon glow), and in the editor you can change any caption's words, preset, size, color, outline, shadow and position.
Plans: Every plan, including Free. The editor's caption tools come with its scene, text and timing tools on Starter and up.
Most people watch Shorts with the sound low or off, so captions do half the work. TallyReel doesn't guess the timing from the script: after the voice is recorded, speech recognition finds when each word is actually said, and the captions follow that. A word that is held or rushed lands on screen when you hear it.
Vertical videos get big bursts of up to three words in the lower part of the frame. Wide YouTube videos get calmer subtitles of up to five words. Each line can also have one key word, set by the script writer on the lines that need it, which is drawn in orange and a little bigger so the eye lands on it.
Updated 18 October 2026 ยท by Danish, who makes TallyReel
How it works
- Pick a caption style. On Create, each of the 7 styles has a preview picture. Word highlight lights up each word as it is said; One word shows a single large word at a time.
- Make the video. The voice is recorded, every word is timed, and the captions are drawn into the video in your style and in the video's own language.
- Fix words or the look in the editor. Open the video in the editor and click a caption to change its words, preset, size, color, outline, shadow or height on screen, or drag it on the preview.
- Apply one look everywhere. Set one caption the way you like it and press Use this look on every caption.
What people use it for
The 7 caption styles
- Word highlight: each word lights up as it is said.
- Plain: clean white words, no effects.
- Orange box: the word being said sits in an orange box.
- Pop: the word being said turns yellow and grows with a quick burst.
- One word: a single large word on screen at a time, for fast, punchy Shorts.
- Bold outline: heavy outlined words that read over busy footage.
- Neon glow: glowing cyan words, with the word being said in pink, for night, tech and gaming looks.
Captions in 44 languages
Captions are written in whichever of TallyReel's 44 languages the video is in, including right-to-left scripts like Urdu, Arabic and Hebrew and scripts like Hindi, Thai and Korean. TallyReel uses the video's language to time the words, which matters most for the many languages written in Latin letters, where guessing from the letters alone would be wrong.
These captions are the words on the video. The text that goes with the post (the social caption, and the title on YouTube) is a separate thing: TallyReel can write that too, from what the video actually says.
Honest limits
- Captions are burned into the video. TallyReel doesn't export a separate subtitle file (SRT or VTT).
- Captions come with videos TallyReel makes. There is no tool to caption a video you made somewhere else.
- Every video gets captions. To show none, remove the caption clips in the editor and export it again.
- In languages written without spaces between words, such as Chinese, Japanese and Thai, Word highlight and One word are drawn as plain lines.
- Timing follows speech recognition, which is very good but not perfect on rare names and mixed-language lines. Check those in the editor.
Questions
How do I add auto captions to a Short?
Make the Short in TallyReel and pick a caption style on Create. The captions are timed to the voice and drawn into the video automatically; there is nothing extra to do.
Can I edit the auto captions?
Yes. In the editor, click any caption to change its words, size, color, outline, shadow and position, or pick one of the presets. One button copies that look to every caption.
Are the captions word by word like TikTok captions?
Yes. Word highlight, Orange box, Pop, One word and Neon glow all follow the voice word by word. Plain and Bold outline show the line without per-word effects.
Do captions work in other languages?
Yes, in all 44 languages TallyReel makes videos in, including Urdu, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish and Japanese. The captions are in the video's own language and script.
Can I download the captions as an SRT file?
Not today. Captions are part of the video file itself, which is what TikTok, Reels and Shorts show anyway.
Pick one. Make it tonight.
Type the idea into TallyReel, read the script, and it makes the video for you: in the browser, on your phone, or in Studio on your own computer. Start on the free plan.