CAPTION TEMPLATE
Word-by-word captions for podcast clips
A short line of light gray words; the spoken word turns white and grows a little. Timed to each word, so it never runs ahead of the voice.
Opens FastClip and offers this style for your captions. Nothing changes until you press Apply.
Free, no credit card, no watermark.
What it is
Word-by-word captions, also called animated or dynamic captions, are timed to every single word. FastClip shows a short line of words and highlights the one being spoken. This is the Classic preset, the default style in FastClip.
Use it for
- Most podcast and interview clips: easy to read, not loud
- Clips that mix calm and fast speech
- A safe default when you post the same clip on several apps
Exact settings
These are the preset values in FastClip's code, the same ones the example was rendered with.
- Preset in FastClip
- Classic
- How the words appear
- The spoken word grows a little and lights up
- Words a line
- Up to 6; a line that does not fit the width splits in two
- Size
- M (medium)
- Position
- Bottom
- Colors
- Text #C8C8C8, spoken word #FFFFFF
- Background
- A soft dark shade behind the line
- Capital letters
- No
- Font
- Geist SemiBold
- Frame
- Vertical 9:16, 1080 × 1920 pixels
- Waveform (audio-only clips)
- Mirrored, soft edges
- Example length
- 18 s
Make this clip from your own podcast in 3 steps
1. Paste a link or upload the file
Paste a YouTube or X link or a Google Drive link to the episode, or upload a video or audio file. FastClip makes the transcript; you can leave and come back.
2. Pick the moment
Select the exact words in the transcript, or set the start and end on the timeline. You choose the moment; FastClip does not pick it for you.
3. Finish it in this style
"Use this template" sets Classic as your caption style. Finish the clip, choose vertical 9:16 for Shorts, Reels and TikTok, then post it to Instagram or X from FastClip, or download the MP4.
How it differs from other styles
Classic lights up the whole word at once. Karaoke captions fill each word gradually. One word at a time shows a single word instead of a line.
Related templates
Questions
Are word-by-word captions the same as animated captions?
Mostly. Animated captions is the wider term for any captions that move. Word-by-word means the timing follows each word, which is what makes the highlight possible. FastClip times every caption to the word.
How accurate is the timing?
Each word gets its start and end from speech recognition, so the highlight follows the voice. Names and rare words can be misheard; fix them in the app before you finish the clip. Timings stay the same.
Why does a line show only two or three words?
The preset allows up to 6 words a line, but the text is large on a vertical frame. A line that does not fit the width splits in two, so the words never get small.
Can I make the text smaller or show more words?
Yes. In Settings, Captions, set “Size” from S to XL and “Words per line” from 1 to 8.
About the example
Audio: chapter 1 of The Art of Public Speaking by Dale Carnegie and J. Berg Esenwein (1915), read by Michael Lipschultz for LibriVox, public domain. Cut, captioned and rendered by FastClip; words corrected in the captions: none.
Make your first clip in this style
Paste a link to your episode. The clip comes out with these captions, and you can change any setting before you finish.