Captions for Vertical Video That Stay in the Safe Area

Vertical video, at a 9:16 ratio, is the format of TikTok, Reels and Shorts. On a phone, your captions share the frame with the app's own buttons and text. Three decisions keep them readable: the frame, the size and the placement.

Set the frame first

Open the Aspect ratio tab in the left panel and choose Vertical, which DepCut labels for TikTok, Reels and Shorts. The editor pins the short side of the frame at 1080 pixels, so a vertical project is 1080 pixels wide. Caption sizes are measured against that frame.

Choose the frame before you judge caption size. Changing the ratio later changes how much room each line has.

Size and line length

Open Subtitles, then Options, and use the Size slider. DepCut wraps every caption to fit inside the frame width at the size you pick, so bigger text means fewer words per line. A caption box also never grows wider than about nine tenths of the frame.

Aim for one or two lines. A short phrase reads faster in a feed than a paragraph, and the captions DepCut generates are already split into short phrases. Raise the size until a typical caption fills two lines, then play a few of the longest ones to check that nothing feels crowded.

Placement

Each style puts its captions in the lower part of the frame by default. Apps lay their own interface over vertical video, mostly along the bottom edge and down the right side. A caption sitting at the very bottom can end up under a description or a row of buttons.

To move captions up:

1. Drag the caption on the video to a new spot.
2. Use the snapping and guide lines to line it up with other elements on screen.
3. Play a few of the longest captions to confirm the new spot still has room for them.

The caption stays inside the frame as you drag, and the new spot applies to every caption on that subtitle track. To go back to the style's own position, open Options and click Reset beside Position.

If your video carries on-screen titles, keep them out of the band where the captions sit so the two never overlap.

Pick a style that holds up on a phone

A phone screen is small and often viewed in bright light, so contrast matters more than ornament. Plate styles such as Clean, Block and Curiosity hook keep the text readable over shifting backgrounds. Curiosity hook, Big & punchy and Neon draw the first caption larger, which gives the opening a hook.

Test before you publish

Export a short version and watch it on a phone at arm's length. Look for three things: whether every caption can be read without effort, whether anything sits under an app control, and whether the words stay clear of faces and key objects in the shot.

Place your captions

Set your project to Vertical in DepCut, generate subtitles and drag them to a spot that works for your footage.