Captions

Many demos are watched with the sound off: in a feed, on a store page, in a review queue. A few words on screen ("Create a project in one click") carry the story where narration can't. DemoTake captions are short text overlays tied to a moment in a scene.

#Add a caption

• At the playhead: press C, or click the caption button in the timeline toolbar (Add Caption at Playhead). The caption runs for 3 seconds and starts with the scene's intent as its text, or "Caption" if the scene has none.
• Anywhere on the timeline: double-click the Captions track at the time you want.
• From the inspector: open the Captions tab and click Add at Playhead.

DemoTake switches to the Captions tab so you can type the text right away. Each caption is listed there with its scene, a text field, a delete button and a timing chip, like "Recording 0.2–3.5 s · 0:12.4–0:15.7". The second time is where the caption lands in the exported video; click the chip to go there. The stepper next to it sets how long the caption stays on screen.

#Timed or attached

A new caption is timed to the recording. If you later cut or speed up footage before it, the caption moves with that footage, so after cuts it can start late or end early.

To keep a caption in place whatever you do to the cut, attach it. Click the pin next to the caption and choose:

• Scene Start: the caption shows for the scene's first seconds.
• Scene Checkpoint (End): the caption shows over the scene's last seconds, its checkpointed end state.

An attached caption shows a tinted pin, and its chip reads like "Scene start · 3.0 s" or "Checkpoint · last 3.0 s". It keeps its place when you change the cut, and never runs past its scene. Use the stepper to change how long it stays up.

#Start from your scene descriptions

When you plan a take, each scene gets a short description of what it shows (its intent), such as "Sign in with the demo account". Those make good first captions. In the Captions tab, click Captions from Scene Descriptions: DemoTake adds one caption at the start of every recorded scene that has a description, using it as the text. Then edit the wording.

Running it again replaces the captions it made before, so it asks first; edits to those captions would be lost. Your other captions stay.

DemoTake captions a take on its own in one case: a take with a platform review preset gets a caption on every scene from its description after recording, so the reviewer can follow each step. Otherwise, descriptions only become captions when you add them this way (or with C, which starts from the description).

#Turn captions on and off

Show in exports at the top of the Captions tab turns all captions on or off for the take, without deleting them. Adding a caption turns captions on. Reviewer and tutorial takes start with captions on; marketing and DemoTest takes start with them off. In the command bar, "turn on captions" and "remove captions" do the same.

#How captions look

Captions use one style, sized to the output: white bold text on a dark, slightly transparent rounded label, centered near the bottom of the frame. Long captions wrap onto more lines. One caption shows at a time. During the free trial, the watermark moves out of a caption's way.

Captions also carry into other outputs: a written guide export includes each scene's captions as quotes.

#Captions from a voiceover, and in other languages

The Captions tab also holds the voiceover. Turn on Captions follow voiceover there to replace the captions made from scene descriptions with one caption per spoken sentence, timed with the voice. Captions can also become subtitle files and a subtitle track when you export; see Subtitles and transcripts.

Under Languages in the same tab, captions are translated with the rest of the take, and each language's video shows its own. See Your demo in other languages.

#Edit and delete

Change a caption's text in the Captions tab. To remove one, click its delete button. Like every edit, adding, changing and deleting captions can be undone with ⌘Z.

#For agents

In edit_apply, caption {scene, start, end, text} adds a caption to a scene, with start and end in seconds within the scene's recording. It replaces any caption it overlaps in that scene, and an empty text removes them. To attach a caption instead, give at: "scene_start" or at: "checkpoint" with a duration in seconds of the exported video. captions_from_intents adds one caption per scene from its description, and captions_enabled {enabled} is the Show in exports switch. timeline_get lists where every caption lands.

{
  "take_id": "<take id>",
  "operations": [
    { "op": "caption", "scene": "Create project", "start": 0.5, "end": 4, "text": "Create a project in one click" },
    { "op": "caption", "scene": "Export", "at": "checkpoint", "duration": 3, "text": "Ready to share" },
    { "op": "captions_enabled", "enabled": true }
  ]
}

In a demo spec, a note step with "caption": true shows its text as a caption while the scene records, for seconds (3 by default):

{ "action": "note", "text": "Projects are created instantly", "caption": true, "seconds": 3 }

#Where to go next

• Scenes and takes: writing scene descriptions that make good captions.
• Pacing and waits: hold a moment so a caption can be read.
• Formats and sizes: how captions fit 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1.
• Voiceover and subtitles: say the same thing out loud, and export subtitles.
• Your demo in other languages: translate the captions.