Captions are text clips

Every caption in Frame Job is an ordinary text clip on a track of its own. That one fact explains most of how captions behave: where they show up, how you change them, and what happens to them in an export.

Menu: File ▸ Import Captions…File ▸ Generate Captions…File ▸ Export Captions…
Where: Inspector ▸ Clip tab ▸ Text
Agent tools: import_captionstranscribeexport_captionsrender_frameexport

Get captions in and out

Three commands sit next to each other in the File menu. None of them has a keyboard shortcut.

Command	What it does
File ▸ Import Captions…	Reads a SubRip (`.srt`) or WebVTT (`.vtt`) file onto a new caption track.
File ▸ Generate Captions…	Transcribes the speech in your clips onto a new caption track.
File ▸ Export Captions…	Writes one track out as SubRip (`.srt`) or WebVTT (`.vtt`).

Captions are ordinary text clips

However a caption gets onto the timeline, it lands the same way: one text clip per caption, on a new track at the front of the stack, so it draws over everything else. An imported caption and a generated one are the same kind of thing afterwards.

So the tools you already use work on them:

Drag a caption to retime it.
Trim its edges, split it or delete it.
Select a run of captions and restyle them together in the Clip tab, under Text.

Edit captions covers what’s particular to them, such as changing the words on a word caption.

Captions burn in with no extra step

Captions are part of the picture, so the preview, an exported movie and a frame an agent renders all show them. There’s nothing to switch on.

That also means an export always carries them burned in. They aren’t a soft-subtitle track that a viewer can turn on and off. If you need that, write a separate subtitle file with File ▸ Export Captions….

Two kinds of caption: subtitles and word captions

When you generate captions, the Style row chooses the kind.

Kind	What you get
Subtitles	Classic two-line captions.
Word captions	Large captions in one of five styles, where the word being said stands out.

Speech is recognised on this Mac, with nothing uploaded, or by AssemblyAI in the cloud, on your own key. Either engine can make either kind.

An imported file always comes in as plain text in the Caption preset, the look subtitles use.

Caption track names

The first caption track is called Captions, then Captions 2, Captions 3 and so on, taking the next free number, so you can tell separate runs apart in the track headers.

The name does some work. Replace in Generate Captions, Re-lay Captions for This Canvas and captions following a speed change only touch a track called Captions or Captions and a number, and only when it holds nothing but text clips. Rename a track to anything else and all three leave it alone.

A caption track is never guessed

Nothing in a project marks a track as the caption track. A name alone doesn’t make one, and you can rename a track whenever you like. So a command that writes a caption file shows you the choice instead of assuming.

Any track can be exported when it has at least one clip, every clip on it is a text clip, and at least one of those clips has text. A track of titles qualifies as well.

File ▸ Export Captions… lists every such track in its Track pop-up, front-most first, with the front-most selected. With only one to choose from, the pop-up is greyed. With none, the menu item is greyed.

An agent has no pop-up to look at. When a project has several such tracks and the agent doesn’t name one, export_captions won’t pick for it, and it replies with the list. With none, it says there are no captions to write.

Frame grid and no overlaps

These rules apply to every caption that’s imported or generated.

Times land on frames. Every caption’s start and end snap to the nearest frame of the project, so a caption can come out up to a frame shorter or longer than its source says. A caption that would snap to no length at all gets one frame.
Captions on one track never overlap. When a caption starts before the previous one ends, the earlier one is cut back to meet it, and the run reports how many were shortened.
A caption needs at least one frame. One that would be left shorter than that is skipped and reported.

Captions inside a nest

The caption commands work on the timeline you have open. With a nest open:

Import Captions… and Generate Captions… put the new track at the front of the nest.
Export Captions… lists that nest’s tracks.

To caption the main timeline, close the nest first.