Restyle a caption track

There are two ways to restyle captions, depending on what you want to change. A word style and its looks are set when the captions are generated, so changing those means generating again. Font, outline and backdrop are ordinary text settings, which you can change on a run of captions in the inspector.

Menu: File ▸ Generate Captions…
Where: The Generate Captions sheet ▸ Replace:Clip tab ▸ Text
Agent tools: transcribeset_text

Restyle by generating again

Choose File ▸ Generate Captions… and set From: to the same clips.
Set Style: to the new word style and tick any looks.
Tick Replace: existing captions. The line under it names each track it will remove, with its caption count, for example “Replaces “Captions” (12 captions).”
Choose Generate.

The old tracks are removed and the new one takes their place at the front of the stack, all in one undo step, Generate Captions. The new track takes the first free name, so a lone Captions track is replaced by another called Captions.

What it costs depends on the engine:

AssemblyAI: the kept transcript is reused whatever style you ask for, so nothing is uploaded and nothing is billed. That holds while the language, Speakers: and Vocabulary: match the transcript and Transcribe again: stays unticked. See Transcribe with AssemblyAI.
On this Mac: the audio is recognised again. It’s free, but it takes the time again.

Which tracks Replace may remove

Replace: is available only for a word style, and only when there’s a track it may replace. It’s greyed out with Subtitles chosen. When it isn’t available, it’s unticked and the line under it is hidden.

A track qualifies when:

it’s named Captions or Captions N, such as Captions 2. A track you renamed doesn’t qualify.
it holds at least one clip, and only text clips.
every one of those clips overlaps a clip being transcribed.

The last rule is about the whole track. If even one caption on it sits outside what From: covers, the track is left alone and Replace: won’t list it. Choosing a wider From: can bring it in.

The old track’s style doesn’t matter, so Replace: also swaps out a Subtitles track or an imported one that meets these rules.

Change a run of captions together

To change the font, outline or backdrop and leave the word style alone, select the captions and use the inspector.

Select the captions on the timeline.
Open the Clip tab and its Text sub-tab.
Change what you need under Font, Style, Outline, Backdrop or Box.

Each page keeps its own words and word timing. Its word style stays too: the highlight colour, the pop and the pill only change by generating again, or through an agent. See Word colours.

Good to know

Replace: always opens unticked. The sheet doesn’t remember it.
A hidden or locked caption track is replaced like any other, and the new track is visible and unlocked.
If you cancel a run, nothing is placed and the old tracks stay.
If one file can’t be transcribed, the captions from the other files are still placed and the old tracks still go, so the captions over that file’s clips are lost. Undo brings them back.
To go from a word style back to Subtitles, generate the Subtitles track, then remove the old one. Replace: isn’t available for that.
With a nest open, the sheet works on that nest’s tracks.

With an agent

transcribe restyles the same way with replace, as long as it asks for a word style and places the captions. An agent can also change a placed page’s word style directly with set_text, which keeps your corrected words. See Word colours.