Caption style previewer: try caption styles on your own video

How to preview a caption style

1. Click Choose video or image, or drag a file onto the page. Any shape works, and a still image is fine for a quick test.
2. Click Choose subtitle file and pick an SRT, WebVTT or ASS file. With no file, type a line into Type caption text and it is shown as one caption for the whole clip.
3. Pick a Preset to start from, or open one you saved earlier with Load preset file.
4. Choose the font. Type a Font name that is installed on this computer, or click Load a font file to use a .ttf, .otf, .woff or .woff2 file.
5. Set Size, Text color, Outline color and Outline width, and turn on Shadow or Background box if you want them. Then choose Position (Bottom, Middle or Top), Distance from edge and Letter case.
6. For short-form captions, set Words per caption to 1, 2 or 3, and turn on Highlight the active word to color each word as it is spoken.
7. If the video is 9:16, Show safe zones draws the areas that TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts cover, using the same data as the safe zone checker. Play the clip and make sure no caption runs under them.
8. Download what you need: Download ASS subtitles, Download SRT (re-split), Download style card (TXT), Download styled frame (PNG) or Download preset file.

Which download to use

The ASS file carries the whole style, including the word highlight, so use it wherever ASS is read: ffmpeg, HandBrake, Aegisub and mpv. None of Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve or CapCut lists ASS among the subtitle files it imports (for Premiere, going by Adobe's help as indexed in October 2026). For them, bring in the re-split SRT for the text and timing, and type in the values from the style card. The styled frame PNG suits thumbnails and client reviews, and the preset file reopens the style here next time.

ffmpeg, HandBrake, Aegisub and mpv

• ffmpeg: the subtitles filter draws the ASS file onto the picture with the libass library, for example ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "subtitles=captions.ass" -c:a copy output.mp4. The video is re-encoded, because the captions become part of the picture. The filter documentation lists its options.
• HandBrake: it has imported external SSA and ASS files since version 1.3.0. Add the file on the Subtitles tab with the Tracks button and burn it into the video. HandBrake's documentation says burned-in ASS subtitles keep all their styling, while a separate subtitle track in an MP4 keeps only bold, italic and underline.
• Aegisub: open the ASS file, then choose Open video file from the Video menu to see it over your footage. The style appears in Aegisub's style editor, where you can keep working on it.
• mpv: run mpv input.mp4 --sub-file=captions.ass, or give the ASS file the same name as the video and mpv loads it on its own.

Premiere Pro

Import the re-split SRT like any media file, then drag it from the Project panel into your sequence to create a caption track. Adobe's help on caption styles, as indexed in October 2026, says to select the caption track and open the Edit tab of the Properties panel. Font, color and size are under Text, and stroke and shadow under Appearance. Type in the values from the style card.

DaVinci Resolve

Right-click in the Media Pool, choose Import Subtitle and pick the re-split SRT. Drag it into the empty area above your video tracks, and Resolve creates a subtitle track for it. Click the track header and open the Track panel of the Inspector. Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 21 manual lists Font, Color, Size, Position X and Y and more there, with Drop Shadow, Stroke and Background at the bottom of the panel.

CapCut (desktop)

CapCut's help page, dated January 2026, says to import the SRT with Captions > Add Captions, then select a caption and set font, size, color and position in the right-side panel. Use Apply to all captions to change every caption at once.

Words per caption and word timing

All words keeps each caption as it is in your file. 1, 2 or 3 splits every caption into groups of that many words. Adobe's June 2026 announcement of single-word captions in Premiere calls the one-word-at-a-time look popular on Reels, Shorts and TikTok. We found no platform guideline that sets a number, so choose what reads well at the speed people talk in your video.

Most subtitle files time whole lines, not single words. The tool then shares each caption's time between its words in proportion to their length and shows Word timing is estimated from cue length. The pieces add up to the original duration and never overlap. A long pause in the middle of a line still throws them off, so play the clip through before you export. If your WebVTT file has a timestamp for each word, as some automatic caption downloads do, the tool uses those times instead.

The re-split SRT keeps the shorter captions and their times, so the same split works in Premiere, Resolve or CapCut. The word highlight exists only in the ASS file, because SRT has no standard way to store colors.

Fonts

• We ship no fonts. The preview uses a font installed on your computer, found by its Font name, or a font file you load. A loaded file is read by your browser for the preview only. It isn't uploaded or saved, and it's gone when you close the tab.
• When you load a file, the tool fills Font name with the family name stored in the font and uses that name in the downloads. It can't read the name from a WOFF2 file, so it uses the file name instead. Correct it if it differs from the font's real name.
• An ASS file or a style card names the font but doesn't contain it. The same font must be installed wherever you use the style, or the software swaps in another one. mpv can read fonts from a folder with --sub-fonts-dir, and Aegisub's Fonts Collector copies every font a script uses into one folder.
• Check that the font's license allows what you plan to do with it, such as burning it into videos you publish.

What the style card gives you

The style card is a plain text file with the style at the 1080×1920 reference frame: font and weight, size in pixels, colors as hex codes, outline width, shadow, background box, position and distance from the edge, letter case, words per caption and the highlight color. It also gives the same values scaled to your video, and the numbers written into the ASS file.

Colors carry over exactly. Sizes need a check, because Premiere, Resolve and CapCut each measure font size and stroke in their own units. Type the values in, compare your editor's viewer with the styled frame PNG, and adjust by eye. There is no Premiere .prtextstyle file, because Adobe hasn't documented that format.

Limits

• Your browser draws the preview with its own text engine. Premiere, Resolve, CapCut and libass draw outlines, shadows and letter spacing slightly differently, so render a short test before a long export.
• It styles captions you already have and doesn't transcribe speech. To get an SRT or WebVTT file from another format, use the subtitle converter. For captions that run early or late, use subtitle shift and sync.
• Every caption in the ASS file gets the same style. With Background box on, the box is a second style drawn under the text, and the highlight is written as separate timed events with color changes.
• The video has to be a format your browser can play. Some HEVC and ProRes files won't open, but a still frame (PNG or JPG) still lets you test the style.

Your files stay on your device

Your video, your subtitle file and any font file are read by your browser and stay on your computer. Nothing is uploaded, and every download is made in the page.