Create Custom Descript Captions Without Keyframing (Full Transcript)

Learn how to apply presets, customize styles, animate captions, and change looks per scene in Descript—fast, brand-ready subtitles with minimal effort.
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[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I'm going to show you how to make custom captions like these without having to keyframe or even type anything. All you gotta do is click a few buttons in Descript. In my project, I can either make a text layer and change it to captions, or I can go to the captions panel and select any of these pre-made options. Now if you're fine with the way these captions look right out the box, uh, that's it. Video done for you. But the best part of Descript's captions is that they're super customizable. In the scene editor, you can adjust the position, size, and text boundary of your captions, as well as the font and alignment. And clicking here will open up the style tab. And this is where you can get real nice and wacky with it. You can change the type of captions, colors, and add borders or backgrounds. You can also change these settings for your active and future words separately. So you have a ton of options here to make your captions easily match your branding or style. You can also have your captions animate in or out in the scene editor. Or you can use these handles in the timeline. Now if there's a specific section in your video where you want to change the look of your captions, all you gotta do is make a scene where you want them to change, then select them in your scene editor and make sure current scene is selected. Now all the changes you make will only affect that specific scene. Just like that, you can instantly add those sweet, sweet attention-grabbing caps to your videos with almost none of the work. So whether you're making social clips, or interviewing your cousin who's notoriously hard to hear. Hey everyone, welcome back to my podcast, Podcast the Podcast People. And today we have a very special guest. My cousin. Hey everyone. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited and honored to be on the show. Descript makes it easier than ever to add captions to your videos. Now if only we could figure out how to add them in real life. Because my cousin is also my accountant, so it would be really nice to actually understand what he's saying.

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Arow Summary
The speaker demonstrates how to create and customize automatic captions in Descript without manual keyframing or typing. Users can apply preset caption styles from the captions panel or convert a text layer to captions, then fine-tune position, size, boundaries, font, alignment, colors, borders, backgrounds, and separate styling for active vs. future words. Captions can animate via the scene editor or timeline handles, and style changes can be limited to specific sections by creating scenes and editing captions with “current scene” selected. The clip ends with a humorous podcast example highlighting captions’ usefulness for hard-to-hear speakers.
Arow Title
How to Make Custom, Animated Captions in Descript
Arow Keywords
Descript Remove
captions Remove
subtitles Remove
customization Remove
scene editor Remove
style tab Remove
active words Remove
branding Remove
animation Remove
timeline handles Remove
social clips Remove
podcast editing Remove
Arow Key Takeaways
  • Apply captions quickly using presets or by converting a text layer to captions.
  • Customize captions’ placement and typography in the scene editor (position, size, boundaries, font, alignment).
  • Use the style tab to adjust caption type, colors, borders, and backgrounds.
  • Style active/current words separately from future words for dynamic readability.
  • Add in/out animations in the scene editor or adjust with timeline handles.
  • Create scene breaks to apply different caption looks to specific sections only.
  • Captions are especially useful for social clips and hard-to-hear interview/podcast audio.
Arow Sentiments
Positive: Upbeat, enthusiastic tone focused on ease of use and creative customization, with humor used to reinforce the value of captions.
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