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Editing

Captions

Also called: subtitles, burned-in captions

On-screen text of the spoken words — essential because most short-form is watched on mute.

Captions are the synchronized on-screen text of a video's audio. The majority of short-form is watched without sound, so captions are not an accessibility afterthought — they are how most viewers consume the content at all, and animated styles add motion that holds attention.

Burned-in captions (rendered into the video) beat platform auto-captions because you control timing, styling, and emphasis. Highlighting the key word in each phrase, sized large and centered, reliably lifts retention.

Related terms

Nva

Stop scrubbing. Start clipping.

Nova finds the moments worth posting and cuts them into captioned vertical clips — free to start.

Create your first clip