Easy Caption Pro Documentation

Quick start

1. Open Easy Caption Pro. It needs macOS 14 or later, and works best on a Mac with Apple silicon. On an Intel Mac, transcription takes longer, so Medium (fast) is the better choice there.
2. Drop a video onto the landing screen, click Open File, or choose File > Open File….
3. Choose the transcription settings you want.
4. Click Transcribe All, or click Choose Sections if you only want to transcribe part of the video.
5. Correct text and timing in the Caption Editor, the Script Editor, the timeline, or right on the video.
6. Choose a design from Presets, or build your own in Style, Animation, and Filters.
7. Choose an export format and resolution from the Export menu.
8. Click Export with Captions or choose a captions-only export.

Opening a new video first checks that this Mac can play it; if it can't, an alert says "It isn't a video this Mac can play." and no project is made. A video that plays immediately becomes a project named after the video file. The app also starts generating a waveform and opens the transcription settings sheet. The project is created even if you click Cancel. Once the video loads, the project starts with your default preset, scaled to fit the video. To change it, open the Advanced tab of the transcription settings and choose a Default preset under New Projects. Until you choose one, it is Basic Recolour.

The workspace

After a video is opened, the main window contains:

• Caption Editor on the left: edit the current segment one word at a time, or open the Script Editor.
• The video viewer in the centre: preview the video and captions. While the video is paused, you can drag, resize, rotate or retype the caption right on the video. The bar along its top can show a safe zone over the video.
• Caption Style on the right: edit style, animation, filters, presets and style layers.
• The scrubber and Timeline at the bottom: navigate, select, move, resize, regroup, and retranscribe words.
• The toolbar at the top: return home, open a file, dock or detach panels, transcribe, export, and open settings.

Docking and detaching panels

The View toolbar menu can detach or dock each panel: Detach Editor / Dock Editor, Detach Style / Dock Style, and Detach Timeline / Dock Timeline. The Caption Editor and Caption Style panel also have a detach button in their title bars.

A detached panel opens as a floating window that stays above other windows. Close it to dock it again. Detaching the Timeline moves both the scrubber and timeline into the floating Timeline window. Floating panels are hidden while the main window is in full screen and return when it leaves full screen. If all three panels are detached, full screen hides the toolbar and shows only the viewer.

The Select Style Layer bar above the timeline appears only while the timeline is docked.

Starting and opening projects

Supported input

The Open File picker accepts macOS movie types, including MP4, QuickTime movie, AVI, and MPEG-2 video, as well as Easy Caption Pro project files.

Drag and drop on the landing screen recognises MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, M4V, MPEG, MPG, WMV, and WebM files. Whether a particular file plays still depends on whether macOS supports its video and audio codecs.

You can also open an exported Easy Caption Pro project with the .ecpProj extension.

Ways to open a file

• Drag a video or .ecpProj file onto the landing screen.
• Click Open File on the landing screen.
• Click Open (the folder icon) in the toolbar.
• Choose File > Open File… or press Command-O.
• With a project open, drop a video or .ecpProj file on the viewer to open it instead.
• Double-click an .ecpProj file in Finder when Easy Caption Pro is its associated app.
• Double-click an .ecp preset file in Finder, or drop it on the landing screen or the viewer, to add it to My Presets.

Opening a file from inside a project closes the current project first, as Home does: the project is saved, and any export or transcription stops. If one is running, the app asks first (Leave This Project?); click Leave to go on or Cancel to stay. A file that isn't a video this Mac can play leaves the current project open.

Recent projects

The landing screen shows up to five recent projects. Each card shows a thumbnail, the project name, the video file name, and when it last changed. Click a card to open it.

If you have more than five, click View All (it shows your project count). Type in Search projects… to filter by project name or video file name, and click Show Recent to go back. Delete All in this list removes every project after you confirm; it can't be undone.

Right-click a project card and choose Rename… (type the new name, then press Return), Export Project…, or Delete Project…, then confirm with Delete.

Deleting a project also deletes its cached thumbnail and waveform. The source video is not deleted.

Missing source videos

A project stores a link to its video, not the video itself. It usually still finds the file after you move or rename it. If it can't (for example, the file was deleted, its drive is disconnected, or the project came from another Mac), a Video File Missing alert appears when you open the project or start a transcription. Click Locate File… and choose the video. The waveform is made again from the file you choose.

Transcribing a video

Easy Caption Pro transcribes on your Mac with WhisperKit. The Whisper models are bundled with the app, so transcription does not need an online service.

The first transcription with each model on a Mac, and the first after a macOS update, is the slowest: the model is prepared for the Mac's Neural Engine, which can take a minute or two (longer for Large). The app starts preparing the model you last used as soon as it opens. After that, transcriptions start much faster. Switching models releases the one you were using, so switching back loads it again, unless Keep models in memory when switching is on.

Simple settings

The Simple tab contains:

• Language: the language that's spoken. English by default; the list has 99 languages in all, plus Auto-detect (see Supported languages).
• Model: Medium (fast) or Large (best quality). Both are built into the app. See Choosing a model.
• Max words per segment: limits how many words are grouped into one caption, from 1 to 30 (5 by default).

Advanced settings

The Advanced tab contains:

• Transcript Details
  • Punctuation: when off, punctuation is stripped from the transcript, including apostrophes and hyphens ("don't" becomes "dont").
  • Include sound cues: keeps labels such as (laughter), [music] and [applause].
  • Seamless highlight: each word's highlight runs until the next word begins, so it never flickers off between words. When off, each word keeps its exact spoken span. Gaps between captions are unaffected either way.
  • Seamless segments: each caption stays up until the next one starts, so there is no gap between captions, even at a pause.
• Smart Segmentation
  • Split at sentences: also breaks captions at periods, exclamation marks and question marks.
• Models
  • Keep models in memory when switching: Medium and Large both stay loaded after you switch between them, so going back is instant. This uses more memory.
  • Clear models from memory: frees the memory the transcription models use. The next transcription loads its model again.
• New Projects
  • Default preset: the preset a new project starts with. A change here applies from the next video you open.

Cancel discards changes made in the sheet; they're kept when you click Choose Sections or transcribe. Keep models in memory when switching and Default preset are saved as soon as you change them, even if you then click Cancel.

Punctuation, Seamless highlight and Split at sentences are on by default; Include sound cues and Seamless segments are off. Every setting in the sheet is remembered between launches.

Choosing a model

Medium (fast), the default, is the quicker model and uses less memory. Large (best quality) takes longer but is more accurate.

• If words are missing, transcribe with Large (best quality) instead. If you've already edited your captions, retranscribe only the part with missing words, so the rest stay as they are.
• If speed matters most, transcribe the whole video with Medium (fast), then retranscribe the sections that need it with Large (best quality): select a section in the timeline, right-click it, choose Retranscribe Selected Audio, set Model to Large (best quality), and click Transcribe Selection. See Retranscribe part of a video.

Choose the model under Model on the Simple tab, or from the toolbar's Transcribe menu. It stays chosen for your next transcription. The first transcription with each model on a Mac takes longer while the model is prepared.

Style layers and transcription

Transcribing keeps your style layers. After Transcribe All, every caption starts on the whole-video style, apart from any that Triggers put on a layer; put captions on layers from the Layers tab or the timeline's Style Layer menu. A retranscribed section keeps the layer and segment style of the captions it replaces.

Transcribe all

Click Transcribe All to transcribe the whole video. This replaces any captions the project already has. While it runs, the main window's content is dimmed and locked; the toolbar stays usable. Detached panels stay editable, but caption edits made in them are replaced when the transcription finishes. The Script Editor closes when a transcription starts. Going Home, opening another file, closing the window or quitting asks first, because it stops the transcription. Your Mac stays awake until it ends.

The progress panel names each step (Reading Audio…, Warming Up Model… or Model Ready, Transcribing…, Processing…, Aligning Words…, Loading Timing Model…, Refining Timing…), starting with Downloading from iCloud… if the video isn't on this Mac yet. The percentage covers the download, reading the audio and transcribing, and stays at 100% while words are aligned and timing is refined. Words appear in the animation as they're recognised. Click Cancel to stop; your existing captions stay as they were.

When transcription finishes, words are grouped into captions. A new caption starts at each pause of 0.2 seconds or more, and at each sentence end when Split at sentences is on. Longer runs are split at the most natural point in the back half of Max words per segment (a sentence end, a comma, a short pause, or before words such as "and" or "the"), so many captions are shorter than the maximum. Gaps shorter than 0.15 seconds between captions are closed so captions don't flicker; longer pauses show no caption unless Seamless segments is on. Numbers such as "4.0" and "1,000" stay one word. In Chinese, Japanese and other languages written without spaces, the transcript is split into words, so each word is timed and highlighted on its own.

After every transcription, the whole-video style is shrunk if needed so the longest line fits across the frame and nine in ten captions fit down it. It is never enlarged, and Word Stack and Line Art looks size themselves.

Choose sections

Click Choose Sections to close the settings sheet without starting transcription. Then:

1. Start dragging in the upper half of the timeline, then drag across and down into the waveform. The selected audio turns blue.
2. Right-click the selection.
3. Choose Transcribe Selected Audio.
4. Review the transcription settings.
5. Click Transcribe Selection.

Start on an empty spot: if the box catches any words, the selection snaps to them, so select a stretch with no captions on its own. Clicking the timeline or starting playback clears the selection.

Repeat for each section you want. The menu item reads Transcribe Selected Audio while the project has no captions yet, and Retranscribe Selected Audio once it has any, even if the selected range itself contains no words. To drop the selection, right-click it and choose Clear Audio Selection.

Retranscribe part of a video

Select words or an audio range in the timeline, right-click, and choose Retranscribe Selected Audio. In the settings sheet, click Transcribe Selection. Words inside the selected time range are replaced; words outside it stay, even if they shared a caption with replaced words. New captions keep the style layer and segment style of the captions they replace.

Transcription menu

The toolbar Transcribe menu contains:

• Model: choose Medium (fast) or Large (best quality).
• Transcribe Video…: opens the transcription settings, to transcribe the whole video again (this replaces all captions) or to choose sections.
• Cancel Transcription: shown while a transcription is running.
• Clear Captions: removes every caption, after asking Clear All Captions? The style and style layers are kept, and the project is saved without captions.

Supported languages

The Language list has 99 languages, plus Auto-detect. English, the default, and Auto-detect are at the top; the others follow in alphabetical order.

Right-to-left languages

Captions in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu and other languages written right to left read from the right: each line starts at its right end, and the spoken-word highlight moves leftwards from word to word. This works in 2D and 3D, in Word Stack and Line Art looks, and in the highlighters, whose marker sweeps from the right. A Latin name or a number inside the caption keeps its own order. Each caption's direction comes from most of its letters, so a Hebrew caption that starts with an English name still reads from the right.

Word Stack looks are set in mirror image, so the Flush left styles set their lines from the right edge. Alignment and the Top Left anchor aren't mirrored: choose Right under Alignment to set Classic lines flush right.

Sweeps inside a word still run left to right: the Karaoke fill, colour sweeps, wipes, an underline growing along its line, and the typewriter reveal in 3D. In 2D, Typewriter types a right-to-left word from its right edge. LED Board and Voxel draw Latin letters only, so captions in other scripts show an empty board.

Previewing and navigating

Viewer controls

The control strip at the bottom of the viewer contains:

• Volume and mute controls.
• Audio Scrubbing On/Off (off by default).
• Lock Handles: when on, the handles of touching words on the timeline stay joined, so dragging one moves the other. When off, only selected neighbours follow, and hovering spreads touching handles apart.
• A centred play/pause button.
• Current playback time and total duration.
• Viewer zoom percentage.
• Playback Quality: Full, 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4.

In a narrow window, Audio Scrubbing and Lock Handles show only their icons, and Playback Quality shows only its setting; hover over them for their names.

Playback Quality changes preview rendering only. It does not reduce export resolution or export quality.

Safe zones

The Safe Zones menu, at the right of the bar along the top of the viewer, draws a guide over the video so you can keep captions clear of what a platform puts on screen:

• Vertical 9:16: TikTok, Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels, Snapchat Ads and LinkedIn, each drawn as the app's own screen, with its buttons and text.
• Feed: Feed 4:5 and Instagram Grid 3:4 shade what a 4:5 feed, or Instagram's 3:4 profile grid, crops off the video.
• Landscape 16:9: YouTube, the player with its controls showing.
• Broadcast: Action & Title Safe, the outlines of action safe (93% of the frame) and title safe (90%).

The phone apps and YouTube are drawn on their own screen shape, so on a video of another shape, the video sits inside that screen with black bars, as the platform shows it. The guide follows the viewer's zoom and pan and doesn't take clicks, so you can still edit the caption under it. It only shows in the viewer, never in an export. While a guide is on, the menu shows its name; choose None, or the same guide again, to hide it. Your choice is remembered between launches.

Viewer gestures

• Pinch over the viewer to zoom from 10% to 2000%.
• Drag the viewer to pan.
• Double-click the viewer to return to 100% zoom and centred position.
• Press Command-= or Command-+ to zoom in.
• Press Command-- to zoom out.
• Press Command-0 to reset viewer zoom and pan.

While the video is paused, dragging or double-clicking the caption itself edits it instead; see Editing captions in the viewer under Editing captions.

Playback and scrubbing

• Click the viewer play button or press Space to play and pause. When playback reaches the end, it starts again from the beginning.
• Drag the thin scrubber between the viewer and timeline to move through the video.
• Drag the lower half of the timeline to scrub while keeping the red playhead centred.
• Scroll the mouse wheel, or swipe sideways on a trackpad, over the timeline to move through time.

When Audio Scrubbing is on and ready, dragging the scrubber or timeline, or scrolling over the timeline, also plays the audio. If the source has no audio track, the audio controls are disabled.

Editing captions

Captions are organised as:

• Segments: groups of words displayed together.
• Words: individually timed caption items inside each segment.

A segment is on screen from its first word's start to its last word's end; nothing shows between segments. To hold captions through pauses, use Close Selected Segment Gaps or Close All Segment Gaps on the timeline, or turn on Seamless segments before transcribing.

Editing captions in the viewer

While the video is paused, the caption in the viewer can be edited directly:

• Hover over it to outline it, and click it to select it. Click the video away from the caption to deselect it.
• Drag it to move it. It snaps to the centre of the frame from side to side, and a dashed line shows when it does.
• Drag a corner handle to resize it.
• Drag the round handle above it to rotate it. It snaps to a right angle within 3°; hold Shift to turn in 15° steps.
• Double-click it to change its words. Press Return to save or Esc to cancel; clicking away also saves, and empty text is ignored. Words you keep keep their timing.
• Use the switch beside a selected caption to choose what dragging changes: Whole Video, its style layer, or Current Segment. The switch sits below the caption, or above it when there's no room. The layer option appears only for a caption on a layer, and Whole Video is unavailable when that layer sets the caption's position. The viewer remembers your choice, separately from the Style tab's scope. Choosing Whole Video or the layer drops the caption's own position, size and rotation so it follows that again.

While you drag, a label under the caption shows where the change goes and the value, for example Whole Video · 50% across · 42% down, 72 pt or -6°. Moving, resizing and rotating set Across, Down, Size and Rotation (Roll in 3D) under Position & Size in the Style tab. Sizes run from 8 to 500 pt in 2D and from 0.1× to 3× in 3D, and 3D Roll is limited to ±45°. If the segment or its style layer already sets that value, the change goes there instead, so it always shows on the caption you're editing. Each drag is one Command-Z undo step.

Caption Editor

The Caption Editor follows the playhead and shows the current segment. While the video plays, it catches up when you pause. Use the left and right arrows beside the segment label to move between segments; moving to a segment also seeks to its start.

Each word has its text, start time and end time. You can:

• Edit its text. Text changes show as you type. A word can't be left empty: clear it and click away, and its text comes back.
• Edit its start or end time. A new time applies when you press Return or click away. As on the timeline, a start can't go before the end of the word before, and an end can't go past the start of the word after or the end of the video; a time that would leave the word with no length, or anything that isn't a number, is discarded.
• Delete it with the red ✕ on its left.
• Click the + below a word to add one after it, or the + above the first word to add one before it.
• Right-click a word for Add Word Before, Add Word After and Delete Word.

A new word reads "word", and the playhead moves to it. It takes half of a gap of 0.3 seconds or more beside the word; otherwise a word added before shares the word's time, and a word added after shares time evenly with the word and the words after it in the segment, never past the next segment. Deleting a segment's last word deletes the segment.

Script Editor

Click Open Script Editor to open the complete transcript in a separate window.

In the Script Editor:

• Each paragraph is one caption segment.
• Press Return to split a segment at the cursor. This doesn't work at the very start or end of a paragraph, or next to an existing break.
• Press Delete at the start of a paragraph to join it to the one before; Forward Delete at the end joins the next one.
• Words you keep keep their timing, and a word typed over another takes its timing. Newly typed words get timings worked out from the words around them.
• Words you cut and paste keep their style. Pasted back into the paragraph they came from, or one next to it, they keep their timing where it still fits; anywhere else they're timed like newly typed words where they land, and the words around them keep theirs. A whole paragraph moved up or down is fitted in where it lands, in the gap there or in time taken from the end of the paragraph before it.
• Copied words, and text pasted from another app, are new words. A pasted word takes the timing of a word deleted from the same or a neighbouring paragraph if it's the only one with that text there; otherwise it's timed like a newly typed word.
• Moving the cursor into a paragraph seeks the video to near the end of that segment.
• Selecting text selects its words, as on the timeline, so Word scope in the Caption Style panel styles them.
• A strip down the left shows each paragraph's segment colour, and a red line under a paragraph marks the segment under the playhead; the editor scrolls to keep it in view.

Edits apply 0.6 seconds after you stop typing, as soon as you click out of the text, or when you click Done; while the video plays or you drag the timeline, they wait. Closing the window, with Done or its close button, applies any edits still waiting, even while the video plays. Command-Z undoes project changes, not single keystrokes. The bottom bar shows the segment and word counts, Changes sync automatically, and Done, which closes the window.

The font and size at the top of the Script Editor only change how the editor reads. They don't change the captions.

Find and replace

Click the magnifying glass or press Command-F to show or hide Find & Replace.

• Press Return in Find for the next match, or in Replace to replace the current one.
• While the bar is open, Command-G moves to the next match and Shift-Command-G to the previous one.
• Replace replaces the current match; All replaces every match.
• The counter shows, for example, 1 of 5, or No matches.
• Done closes the bar.

Search is case-insensitive.

Styling selected words

Turn on Edit Caption Font & Colour. Each word then shows in its own font and colour, or the whole video's (layer and segment styles aren't shown), the editor's font and size controls are hidden, and a bar appears with Font, Color, Editor BG, Reset to Default and Spoken Word Script. Select words, then choose a Font or Color to give just those words their own caption font or colour. Either choice applies both the bar's font and its colour, which start from the first selected word. Editor BG changes only the editor's background.

Reset to Default clears the selected words' own look: font and colour, and what Word scope gave them (size, letter case, box, outline, shadow, glow and Spoken Word), including a spoken-word colour set in the Spoken Word Script. If nothing is selected, it applies to all words.

Spoken Word Script opens a separate window for the spoken word's font and colour. You can't type in its transcript or edit captions from it. Select words there and use Change font (with Font), Change font color (with Color), Editor BG and Reset to Default. With Change font color on, it also offers Recolor per line, Random color and Keep on played words, which always change the whole video's settings, whatever is selected. The Change font and Change font color switches turn the whole video's Spoken Word Font and Colour effects on or off, and a font or colour picked with nothing selected applies to the whole video.

Script Editor context menu

Right-click selected words for, depending on the selection: Create New Segment, Add Word Before, Add Word After, Add to Previous Segment, Add to Next Segment, Split Into Segments, Merge Words, Unmerge Words, Style Layer, Delete and Reset to Global Style. Closing gaps and transcription are only on the timeline.

Using the timeline

The timeline uses a stationary red playhead in the centre. Caption blocks and the waveform move underneath it.

The upper half is for words and selection. The lower half is for scrubbing.

Basic interactions

• Click a word block to select it, make it current, and seek to its start. Click a handle to select its word without seeking. Click empty space to clear the selection.
• Drag a word block to move it without changing its length. A neighbouring word touching it keeps that edge on the moved word, so it stretches or shrinks.
• Select several words and drag one of them to move them together.
• Drag a word's left or right handle to change its start or end.
• Hover near touching handles to spread them apart so you can grab the one you want. This doesn't happen while Lock Handles is on, during playback, or with several words selected.
• Dragging a boundary where words meet also moves selected words' handles there. With Lock Handles on (in the viewer's control strip), every handle on that boundary moves, selected or not.
• Drag from empty space in the upper half to draw a selection box; words it crosses are selected. To select audio too, for example silence you want to transcribe, drag down into the waveform. The selected audio turns blue.
• Drag near the left or right edge while selecting to scroll the timeline.
• Drag the lower half to scrub.
• Use the slider at the bottom right to change the timeline zoom.

Moving words and handles can't overlap the words around them, and handles snap to nearby word edges.

Right-click actions

Right-clicking a word that isn't selected selects it first. The menu depends on the selection and can include:

• Create New Segment: move the selected words into a new segment.
• Add Word Before / After: for one selected word.
• Add to Previous Segment / Add to Next Segment: for a word or run of words at the start or end of its segment.
• Split Into Segments: make each selected word its own segment.
• Merge Words: combine two or more selected words from the same segment into one.
• Unmerge Words: split a merged word back into separate words that share its time evenly and keep its style and layer.
• Delete.
• Reset to Global Style: clear the selected words' own style and their segments' own style. Segments stay on their style layer. Shown when there's a style to clear.
• Style Layer: put the words on Whole Video, a layer, or a New Layer.
• Close Selected Segment Gaps: stretch each selected segment's last word to the next segment's start, and close the gaps between its words, so the caption stays up until the next one. Shown when words are selected.
• Close All Segment Gaps: the same for every segment.
• Retranscribe Selected Audio (Transcribe Selected Audio while there are no captions): transcribe the selected words' time span, or the selected audio, again.
• Clear Audio Selection: when only audio is selected.

Style layers

A style layer is a named style that sits on top of the whole-video style. Segments on a layer take its style, and anything the layer doesn't change still follows the whole video. Single words can go on a layer too, by hand or through Triggers, and take its look. Use layers for different speakers, a highlight look for key moments, quotes, standout words, or anything else that should look different.

The Layers tab

The Layers tab in the Caption Style panel lists Whole Video, with its segment count and a paintbrush that opens the whole-video style, then every layer. Each layer row shows:

• Its colour. Click it to change the colour that marks the layer on the timeline and in the Script Editor.
• Its name. Click the name to rename the layer; an empty name keeps the old one.
• How many segments are on it, and, beside a text icon, how many words are on it by themselves.
• A paintbrush button that opens the layer in the Style tab.
• A ⋯ menu with Select Segments, which selects its segments and the words on it by themselves (greyed out when it has neither), Duplicate and Delete….

Click New Layer to add a layer. It's named "Layer" and a number, with the name ready to type. Duplicate makes a copy with the same style but no segments. Deleting a layer puts its segments back on the whole-video style and its words back on their segment's, and turns off any trigger that uses it; if the layer has segments, words or a style of its own, the app asks first.

Putting segments on a layer

• Select words in the timeline. Once you have a layer, a Select Style Layer bar opens above the timeline with Whole Video and each layer, and the selection's layer is highlighted. Click one to put the words on it. The viewer is slightly shorter while the bar is open. It appears only while the timeline is docked in the main window (View › Dock Timeline), and it closes when you clear the selection or start playback.
• Or, with words selected, click a layer under SELECTION in the Layers tab, which says what's selected, for example "2 segments" or "3 words".
• Or right-click words in the timeline or the Script Editor, choose Style Layer, then pick a layer, Whole Video, or New Layer.

If the selected words cover only part of a segment, just those words go on the layer, and they stay in their caption. Putting a whole segment on a layer also takes its words off any layer of their own, and choosing Whole Video for some of a segment's words takes them off their own layer, so they follow their caption's again.

A word on a layer by itself takes the layer's font, size, letter case, colour and texture, its box, outline, shadow and glow, and its Spoken Word: how the word stands out as it's said, and what it keeps once said. If the layer comes in As it's said with an effect, or has Float, Glitch, Random font or Letter sway on under While on Screen, the word does too; what the layer leaves off, the word takes from its caption. A Caption or Each line box becomes a box round just that word. Its position, layout and the rest of its animation stay its caption's, as do the Spoken Word settings only a whole caption can have: One at a time, Apply Preset to Spoken Word, Push neighbouring words aside, Apply to the whole line and the underline's Glow. A word that grows with its layer's Bigger makes room for itself when its caption has Push neighbouring words aside on, as it is to start with. On a whole-caption style, such as a Word Stack, Highlighter or Line Art look, the word shows its font, colour and capitals, and of its Spoken Word its colour, Bigger, Shake, Wave, Glitch, Jiggle, Sparkles, Black-out, box and underline, and Float, Glitch, Random font and Letter sway. A Line Art look that draws its letters as pictures can't change their font or turn them. Putting single words on a layer clears their own look, so the layer's look shows. Putting a whole segment on a layer keeps the segment's and its words' own styles, which still win over the layer.

Segments keep their own automatic colours on the timeline. A layer's colour appears as a small strip above its timeline blocks and as an underline beneath its words in the Script Editor. These colours only mark the layer; they don't change how captions look.

Triggers

TRIGGERS, at the bottom of the Layers tab, put captions and words on a layer for you, across the whole video: captions in turn, and words by where they sit in their caption or by how long they are. Each row picks out captions or words, and the menu at its end sets the layer they take the look of: Off, any layer, or New Layer.

• Captions in turn: the video's captions take looks one after another, starting with the video's own style, then the row's layer, and then start again. Every caption to Every 8 captions sets how many captions each look lasts, so a look can change every caption or every few. Once it's on, Add a Look adds another layer to take in turn, up to four looks in all, each in a Then row; set a Then row to Off to take it out.
• Short captions: every word of a caption this short, from 1 word to 6 words.
• First word: each caption's first word.
• Last word: each caption's last word.
• Long words: words this long or longer, from 2+ letters to 20+ letters (7 to start with).
• Short words: words this short or shorter, from 1 letter to Up to 10 letters (3 to start with).

A row's count appears once it's on. Letters and digits count towards a word's length; punctuation doesn't. A word that fits more than one row takes the top row's layer, and a word you put on a layer by hand keeps that layer. A caption you put on a layer by hand keeps it too, rather than taking its turn.

New Layer in a row's menu adds a layer named after the row, such as "Long words", turns the row on with it, and opens the layer in the Style tab so you can give it its look. Captions and words a trigger picks take the layer's look just as ones put on it by hand do, count towards it in the layer list, and are selected by its Select Segments. A caption in turn takes the layer's whole style: its position, type, box, colours, entrance and exit.

Triggers work whatever the scope, and Command-Z undoes a change to them. Deleting a layer turns off the rows that use it. Applying a complete preset at Whole Video removes every layer and replaces the triggers with the preset's own; applying just its design replaces the triggers too, and removes a layer an earlier preset added unless you've put segments or words on it yourself. Presets in the Word Triggers group add a layer for each of their word looks, such as "Long words", and turn on the rows that give words those layers; presets in the Caption Triggers group add a layer for each look their captions take in turn, such as "Right side", and turn on Captions in turn; other presets turn the triggers off.

Styling a layer

Click a layer's paintbrush, or choose Layer in the scope picker at the top of the Style, Animation, Filters or Presets tab and pick the layer under it. Changes then apply to every segment on that layer, and to the words on it by themselves.

The scope follows the playhead: Current Segment on a segment with its own style, Layer on a segment on a layer, otherwise Whole Video. Layer appears in the picker once a layer exists. Choosing Layer yourself while the playhead's segment is on that layer clears that segment's own style; words keep theirs, and the paintbrush keeps both.

Style values resolve in this priority:

1. Word override
2. The word's own layer, put on by hand or by a trigger
3. Segment override
4. The segment's style layer
5. Whole-video style

Styling captions

The Caption Style panel has five tabs:

• Style
• Animation
• Filters
• Presets
• Layers

Changes show in the viewer straight away. In the Style tab, sections open one at a time and show a summary when closed, and detailed settings are under Fine-tune. An open section's reset arrow (every section except Colours has one) restores its defaults; at Layer, Current Segment or Word scope it removes that scope's own values instead.

Style scope

Use:

• Whole Video for the shared project style.
• Layer for a style layer. This appears once the project has a layer.
• Current Segment for a segment-specific override.
• Word for the words selected on the timeline or in the Script Editor, or else the word under the playhead. It's greyed out until there's a word to style. It's on the Style, Animation and Presets tabs; at Word scope the Filters tab edits the whole video.

The scope follows the playhead: Current Segment on a segment with its own changes, its layer if it's on one, otherwise Whole Video. Word stays chosen as the playhead moves.

At Word scope the Style tab shows what a word can have of its own: Font (font, size, letter case, colour and texture), Box & Outline (a Box behind the word, None or On, and an outline round its letters) and Shadow & Glow. With a whole-caption style, such as a Word Stack or Line Art look, it shows only Font. The panel shows the word under the playhead if it's one of those selected, otherwise the first of them, and a change goes to every selected word. Where the caption sits and how it's laid out stay the caption's.

Switching the scope by hand to Whole Video, or to Layer with the segment's own layer, clears the current segment's own changes. Words keep their own styles. At Current Segment scope, a segment with its own changes also shows Reset to Whole Video (named after its layer when it has one, such as Reset to Layer 1), which clears all of them, animation and filters included. At Word scope, selected words with their own style show Reset to Current Segment, which clears it. Undo either with Command-Z.

2D and 3D modes

The Style tab begins with a 2D / 3D picker, except at Word scope, where words follow their caption. Render mode is set for the whole video or, at Layer scope, for the layer. At Current Segment scope it applies to the segment's layer, or to the whole video when the segment has none; a segment given its own 2D or 3D by a preset applied to it alone keeps it, and the picker changes that.

Switching to 2D turns off a Special Mode and 3D-only effects. Switching to 3D limits the outline thickness to 10 and, on a video less than 2160 pixels tall, sets Edge smoothing to 4×.

The Style tab's sections

• Colours: every colour currently painting the caption, in the order it is drawn, including colours set in the Animation and Filters tabs. Each row is named for what it paints, such as Text, Box or Shadow. Colours that match share one row, which says how many places use it, so one swatch changes them all. Click a shared row to change each part on its own. Click the arrow at the end of a row to open that colour's own control. Gradients and palettes are listed too, and are changed in their own sections.
• Font: the font (Choose…), or Random font for each word with Shuffle for a new mix; Letter case (As written, CAPITALS or lowercase); a solid or gradient colour (in 3D, Apply colour to sets All faces, or the Front, Sides and Back separately); Alternating colours (Candy, Timeline, Neon, Pastel, Sunset, Ocean, Rainbow or Custom, with New colour every Word or Line); and in 2D a Texture (Glitter or Grunge). With the spoken word's Colour on in the Animation tab, Font also shows Not said yet and Spoken word colours.
• Layout: Classic, Word Stack or Line Art. Classic sets Alignment, Words per line, Line spacing and Word spacing. Word Stack has 30 styles in five groups (Type layouts, Flush left, Size play, Stack motion and Highlighters); Flush left's three set every line from one left edge, and eight are highlighters that sweep marker, paint, paper or tape behind the words. Hover over a style to see what it does. Justified keeps the Classic controls and adds Column width, with Largest line and Line gap under Fine-tune; other styles set their own lines and show their own options. Line Art has 9 looks in two groups (Outlines & fills and Calligraphy), from contours and engraving to calligraphy whose pen writes each word as it is spoken. Line Art is 2D only; in 3D, Word Stack offers 17 styles. Neither appears while Caption Flow is Stack them. Choosing Word Stack or Line Art, or picking a style, clears the Animation tab. A Line Art look also sets its font; for other styles, Use it beside Designed in … switches to the style's font.
• Position & Size: Anchor (Centre or Top Left, which keeps every caption's left edge and the top of its first line in the same place whatever its length), position Across and Down, Size, and Angle: Rotation, Word tilt, Line tilt and Letter jumble. Word tilt leans each word, and Line tilt each whole line, alternately left and right. Anchor appears only for 2D Classic captions (not with Word Stack, Line Art, LED Board or Stack them). In 3D, Angle has Tilt, Turn, Roll and Letter jumble instead, and Size is a multiplier.
• Box & Outline: a Box (None, Caption, Each line or Each word) with its Fill (Solid, Blur or Glass), its colour, Alternating box colours (Each line or Each word), Opacity and Corner radius; Torn paper edges in 2D (not for Each word), or Depth, Side shading and Skew in 3D. Fine-tune holds padding, offsets, an Edge and a Glow round the box. Then Outline the letters (in 2D, Show outline only leaves out the letters' fill, though a spoken or said colour still fills its word; in 3D, its Fine-tune can make Hollow letters), and Change the video behind with Blur it, Tint it, or both.
• Shadow & Glow: a shadow Under the words and/or Under the box (when there is a box), with Spread and Distance under Fine-tune, and a Glow round the words. In 2D it also has the Echo stack described under 3D Look, except with LED Board, Line Art, or a Word Stack style that 3D doesn't offer.
• 3D Look (3D only): Depth, Bevel and Slant (with Slant Angle); a material and an Echo stack of coloured copies behind each word (Copies, Spacing, Angle); and the camera: Flat, or Perspective with a Field of view.
• Advanced: Motion blur, with Shutter. In 3D it also has Quality: Edge smoothing (Off, 2×, 4×), Curve detail (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) and Supersampling (1×, 1.5×, 2×).

Numeric values beside many sliders can be clicked and typed directly.

3D materials

The material picker in 3D Look offers these surfaces:

• Standard
• Plastic
• Pearl
• Metal
• Foil
• Glass
• Jelly
• Stone
• Wood

and these effects:

• Neon
• Fire
• Fur

Shiny and clear materials reflect or bend the video behind the caption. Every material except Standard has Intensity and Use Font Colour, and most add controls of their own. Glass and Jelly use the controls described under Glass, below.

Glass

Glass bends, blurs and lights the video behind it as the video moves. Three things can be glass:

• A caption's box: in Box & Outline, set the box's Fill to Glass.
• The letters: pick Glass in 3D Look, in 3D mode.
• The spoken word's box: turn on Glass under Spoken Word › Box.

They show the same controls and share one set of values, so letters and boxes always match. Pick a Look to start from: Clear, Regular, Frosted, Tinted or Lens. Then adjust Refraction, Frost, Edge width, Edge light, Tint and Tint strength. A dark tint keeps white words readable over bright video. Fine-tune holds the rest of the lens, colour, light and shadow. On a glass box, Tint and Tint strength take the place of the box's colour and opacity. The Glass group in Presets has ready-made versions.

Solid and gradient colours

Text, spoken-word and box colours, and several Animation colours, can be Solid or Gradient; outline, shadow, glow and edge colours are solid. A gradient has Presets, a bar where you drag colour stops or click to add one, Add Colour, Remove, Reverse, Direction and Spread. Text colours also offer Seamless across words, which spreads one gradient across each line instead of repeating it in every word.

Animations

Animation scope can be Whole Video, Layer, Current Segment or Word. At Word scope the tab shows Entrance, where When does it appear? sets With the caption or As it's said and, as it's said, the word's own effects; Spoken Word; and While on Screen with Float, Glitch, Random font and Letter sway (in 3D, Letter sway). With a Word Stack, Line Art or LED Board look, Word scope has no Entrance.

The Animation tab follows a caption's life: how it comes in, how the spoken word stands out, what the voice stresses, how it moves while on screen, and how it leaves. Closed sections show a summary, and an open section has a reset arrow.

• Quick start: one click sets up a whole entrance and exit: None, Fade, One word, Slide up, Typewriter, Bounce, Blur in or Slam. In 3D, Flip in and Tumble take the place of Blur in and Slam. With a Line Art look, LED Board, or a Word Stack style other than Justified and the highlighters, the first tile is the style's own arrival (for example Write or Scan on). None resets the whole tab.
• Entrance: under When do words appear? choose With the caption, As they're said or One at a time. Then pick one or more Effect tiles (hover to preview): Fade, Slide, Grow, Pop, Blur, Slam, Bounce, Wipe and Typewriter, plus Flip, Tilt, Spin, Tumble and Zoom in 3D. With a Word Stack or Line Art style in 2D there is also Draw (not for Justified, or for the Calligraphy looks, which write their words on already). Animate then sets how the effect spreads: Together, Lines, Words or Letters with the caption, or Words, Lines or Letters as they're said. In 3D, Implode, Inflate and Fly In & Sway are entrance motions; Fly In & Sway can run on top of Implode or Inflate. With the Telescope or Repeat style, With the caption isn't offered.
• Spoken Word: how the word being said stands out: Colour, Box, Underline, Bigger, Glow, Capitals, Font, Black-out, Shake, Wave, Glitch, Jiggle, Sparkles and Echo. The Colour, Box, Underline, Bigger, Capitals, Font, Wave and Echo cards offer Keep on words already said, which leaves that styling on words once they've been said (with Wave, they keep waving). Echo stacks coloured copies behind the word being said, in place of the Style tab's Echo stack, with Colours, Copies, Spacing and Angle; the copies can also animate (Fan out, One by one or Ripple, at a set Speed). The spoken word's Glow shares its colour, Blur and Opacity with Glow round the words in the Style tab. The spoken word's Box has its own While shown motion: Pulse, Heartbeat, Breathe, Bob or Wobble. Apply Preset to Spoken Word uses a chosen preset's design on the word being said: tick it, then pick the preset with Apply Preset. A 3D preset draws the word being said in 3D on a 2D caption. It isn't offered with a Word Stack, Line Art or LED Board look, or at Word scope. In 3D, Black-out, Shake, Wave, Glitch and Sparkles aren't offered, and When each word lands adds Impact sparks and Pivot on bottom edge.
• Emphasis: picks out words by the voice, or by what they mean. Under Which words?, Stressed words are the word or two said hardest in each caption, Loud words are every word said louder than the level you set, and Important words are the words that carry each caption's meaning, whatever the voice does (worked out on your Mac from the words themselves; a language macOS has no model for goes by the voice). Sensitivity sets how many are picked: higher picks more. At Word scope, Emphasis gives the selected words their own say: Emphasised or Not emphasised, whatever the voice or the words would pick, and Automatic follows Which words?. What happens can be Pop, Shake and Jolt, plus Colour and Marker in 2D. In 2D, Follow the voice adds Size by loudness (not with Line Art, or Word Stack styles other than Justified) and Pulse with voice; it isn't offered with LED Board. With LED Board, only Jolt and Colour are offered.
• While on Screen: what loops while the caption shows. Pick one or more Effect tiles (hover to preview): the movements Drift up, Drift down, Rock, Wiggle, Pulse, Slow zoom and Highlight bar, a bar that sweeps in behind the caption, then Float, Glitch, Sheen and Random font in 2D, plus Letter sway, Echo and Impact shake. Rock mixes three amounts: Roll from side to side, Tilt back and forth and Turn in depth. Each one you pick gets a card with its options, and None clears them all. Random font keeps giving each line or word (Line or Word) a new random font, as many times a second as Speed sets; it isn't offered with LED Board or a Line Art look that draws its letters as pictures. Echo gives every word an echo stack that plays over and over (Fan out, One by one or Ripple); while it's on, the Style tab's Echo stack is greyed out, and the spoken word's Echo still takes its place on the word being said.
• Exit: how a caption leaves, with the same effects except Draw; Grow becomes Shrink. In 3D, Exit also offers Implode's Explode and Fly In & Sway's Tumble away.
• Caption Flow: how captions follow one another: One at a time, Stack them, or Shape, which carries the words round an Orbit or a Border from one caption to the next. Caption Flow is set for the whole video or a layer. Stack them has Gap, Lines shown and Stack towards; Shape has Turn time, plus Scale for Border. Stacked captions come in and leave whole, and Slam, Drift up, Drift down and Slow zoom aren't offered with them; choosing Stack them removes any already picked. Choosing Stack them, or Shape in 2D, switches a Word Stack or Line Art layout back to Classic. Shape isn't available with a 3D entrance motion. A pause ends a stack: nothing shows in the pause, and the caption after it starts a new stack.
• Special Modes: Dice Roll, Split-Flap, Tri-Vision and Voxel switch the caption to 3D and replace its lines; LED Board turns a 2D caption into a dot-matrix sign and replaces a Line Art look, or a Word Stack style other than Justified, with Classic lines. Dice Roll has Block colour and its own Roll away exit; Split-Flap has Tile colour and Flap speed; Tri-Vision has Panels (Poster, Mono, Night or Custom), Turn time and Slat stagger; Voxel has Build, its own entrance under Entrance, with Build time; turn Build off and the words appear whole, so any entrance effect can bring the caption in. While a 3D special mode is on, only the spoken word's Colour and Font can be changed, and the other sections offer a button to turn the mode off. Turning a mode off returns the caption to 2D if the mode switched it to 3D.
• Highlighter or Marquee, shown with one of those styles: how the pen sweeps (None, Each line with Time per line, Across each word with Speed, or Snap per word), and Marquee's Speed.

When words appear One at a time (Entrance), Exit and Caption Flow are not possible and offer Show whole captions instead, which switches to As they're said.

Each chosen entrance effect has a card with its own Duration, an Amount (Distance for Slide and Bounce; none for Fade, Wipe or Typewriter) and a Direction for Slide and Wipe; Zoom adds Depth, Tilt X and Tilt Y. With the caption, cards also have a Delay (not Typewriter), and with Fit Intro to Caption on, a Length slider replaces Duration and Delay. Exit's Fine-tune holds each exit effect's own settings and, under Timing (not with Stack them), Carry on over the next caption, which lets the exit run on past its caption's end, over the next caption, and Start later by, how far into the next caption it runs. Start later by is greyed out until Carry on over the next caption is on. Before a pause, and at the last caption, an exit always ends with its caption. With the caption, Wipe and Typewriter cross the whole caption and the other effects can also run by line, word or letter; as they're said, every effect can run by word or line. With the caption, Entrance's Fine-tune has Timing, with Allow Intro Past Caption End and Fit Intro to Caption. The Typewriter card adds Blinking cursor, Cursor colour, Keep the cursor on, Height, Width and Offset.

With a box, Entrance's Fine-tune has Background box options, such as Keep the words inside the box and, as words are said, Grow the box as words appear and Merge the boxes. When words appear As they're said, these show even with no effect picked. Exit's Fine-tune has Keep the words inside the box and Move the box too as well.

Filters

Filters change the caption, never the video. They can be applied at Whole Video, Layer or Current Segment scope:

• Sharpen
• Neon Edges
• Emboss
• Comic
• Chromatic Aberration
• Brightness Pulse
• Colour Cycle
• Saturation
• Invert
• Colour Tint

Open a filter and tick its Enable box (for example Enable Sharpen). Sharpen then has Amount, Neon Edges Intensity, Emboss Depth, Chromatic Aberration Offset, Brightness Pulse Speed and Amount, Colour Cycle Speed, Saturation Saturation, and Colour Tint Tint Colour and Intensity; Comic and Invert have no settings.

When the caption has a Box and a filter is on, that filter shows Text Only, which filters the letters and leaves the box as it is.

Use the reset arrow in an open filter section to restore its defaults. Colour Tint keeps its chosen Tint Colour.

Presets

The Presets tab contains:

• Built-In: 347 presets in 25 groups: Essentials, Word Boxes, Backgrounds, Karaoke, Colours, Underlines, Tilted Lines, Echo, Outlines, Word Stacks, Bold & Punchy, Animated, Exits, Colour & Neon, Glass, Retro & Texture, Highlighters, Line Art, 3D Text, 3D Stacks, 3D Materials, 3D Motion, Caption Flow, Word Triggers and Caption Triggers. Each group shows its count, and 3D presets carry a 3D badge.
• My Presets for styles you save or import.

Search presets finds presets by name; typing a group's name shows the whole group.

Click a preset card to apply the complete preset at the current scope.

Right-click a preset for Apply Preset, Apply Design, Apply Animation and Export Preset… (built-in presets too). Your own presets also have Rename… and Delete, and the × on their card deletes them at once.

Save Current Style asks for a Preset name. At Layer scope it saves the layer over the whole-video style; at Current Segment it saves that segment's full style. At Word scope it saves the selected word's full style. Import accepts several .ecp files at once, names each after its file, and adds them to My Presets.

At Current Segment scope, presets create or update a segment override; with no segment under the playhead, they do nothing. At Layer scope, they set the layer's style. Applying a complete preset at Whole Video starts the video afresh, so it looks as the preset does: the preset replaces the whole-video style, every segment and word loses its own style and its style layer, the layers are removed, and the preset's own triggers (see Triggers under Style layers) replace the current ones. Command-Z brings back what was there. The Word Triggers presets make words picked out by their length or their place in the caption pop, glow or move as they're said or while they're on screen. The Caption Triggers presets give captions looks in turn, every caption or every few: they swap sides, jump to the top or step down the frame, change their type, size, colour or box, or turn the other way in 3D. Each look is a style layer you can edit. The Exits presets are built on exits: captions that leave as the next one arrives, words, lines and letters that leave once they're said, and stacks that push the oldest caption off. At Word scope, a preset gives the selected words its look: its font, letter case, colour and texture, its box, outline, shadow and glow, with a Caption or Each line box becoming a box round each word, and its Spoken Word. Each word keeps its own size, and only Apply Preset is offered. A Word Triggers preset gives its looks at every scope: at Word scope, each selected word takes the look its triggers would give it, or its first look when none picks the word; at Layer scope, the layer takes its first look; at Current Segment, the caption takes the preset and its words the looks its triggers pick. A Caption Triggers preset gives captions their turns only at Whole Video; at any other scope it gives its own look.

Apply Animation takes everything the Animation tab sets, plus the Brightness Pulse and Colour Cycle filters. Apply Design takes the rest: the Style tab and the other filters. At Whole Video, applying either part also clears that part from segments' and words' own styles; their other settings stay.

A built-in design is shrunk if needed to fit the frame over the captions it styles: every caption at Whole Video, the layer's at Layer scope, and the one caption at Current Segment. Its longest line fits across, and nine in ten captions fit down (the middle one when there are fewer than ten), so one unusually long caption doesn't shrink the rest; it can run off the frame instead. It is never enlarged, and Word Stack and Line Art looks size themselves. A design anchored at its top-left corner is fitted to the room to the right of and below that corner.

Projects and autosave

What a project stores

A project stores:

• Caption segments and words.
• Word timings.
• Whole-video, style layer, segment, and word style settings.
• Animation and filter settings.
• Style layers, which segments and words are on them, and the triggers.
• The last playback position.
• A link to the source video.

The source video itself is not copied into the project.

Autosave

Easy Caption Pro saves automatically about two seconds after the latest caption, style, or layer change. Rapid typing and slider movement are grouped into one later save.

The app also saves when you:

• Return to the project browser.
• Close the window.
• Quit the app.

If an export or transcription is running, quitting asks first (Quit Easy Caption Pro?), because it stops it.

Closing the window saves the project but leaves the app running. If an export or transcription is running, the app asks first (Close This Window?), because closing stops it. Click the Dock icon to open a new window, even with the User Guide open.

If a save fails, a banner appears at the bottom of the window. Click Dismiss after noting the error.

Returning home

Click Home (the house icon) in the toolbar, or choose File > View Projects (Shift-Command-P), to:

1. Ask first if an export or transcription is running (Leave This Project?); Cancel keeps you in the project.
2. Pause playback and close the Script Editor, keeping what you typed there.
3. Stop any export or transcription.
4. Save and close the current project.
5. Dock any floating panels back into the window.
6. Return to the landing screen.

The next project starts with a clean editor rather than inheriting the previous project's settings. Opening another file from inside a project does all of this before the file opens.

Exporting and importing project files

Right-click a project on the landing screen and choose Export Project… to create an .ecpProj file. If the file can't be written, an alert says why.

Opening an .ecpProj file adds a copy of it to your projects. Your changes are saved to that copy, not to the file, so export it again to share an update. Opening the same file twice adds two copies. The file links to the video rather than containing it, so on another Mac you'll usually be asked to locate the video. If an .ecpProj file can't be read, or isn't a project this version can open, a Can't Open alert says which, and nothing is added.

In Finder, select an .ecpProj file and press Space to see its name, size, number of caption segments and last-modified date. An .ecp preset file previews the same way, without the segment count.

Exporting

The toolbar Export menu (the share icon) holds Format and Resolution, Export with Captions, the Export Captions Only submenu and, during an export, Cancel Export. Each time the main window opens, Format starts at HEVC High and Resolution at Match Source, shown with the video size (for example Match Source (1920×1080)).

Formats

• ProRes 422 — MOV
• HEVC High — MOV
• HEVC Medium — MOV
• H.264 High — MP4
• H.264 Medium — MP4

Resolutions

• Match Source sets the export composition to the source dimensions.
• 1080p scales the video up or down until its shorter side is 1080 pixels: 1920×1080 for landscape, 1080×1920 for portrait.
• 4K does the same with a shorter side of 2160 pixels: 3840×2160 or 2160×3840.

Aspect ratio is preserved when scaling, and captions scale with the frame. Each side is rounded to an even number of pixels.

HEVC Medium and H.264 Medium use Apple's 1920×1080 export presets. When the exported frame is larger than that (at 4K, or at Match Source with a larger source), they use the highest-quality preset, as the High formats do, so the frame keeps its size.

Export with captions

Choose Export with Captions to render captions, animation, filters, 2D/3D effects, and style layers over the source video. The source audio is kept. If a video's picture starts a moment after its sound, the export holds the first frame until it starts.

The suggested filename is:

Project Name Captioned.extension

The app won't let you overwrite the source video; choosing it shows "Choose a different export filename. The source video cannot be overwritten." Choosing any other existing file replaces it once the new export is finished; if you cancel or the export fails, the old file stays as it was. On another drive, such as an external disk, the old file is deleted as soon as the export starts.

Captions-only exports

The Export Captions Only submenu offers:

• Green Screen
• Blue Screen
• Transparent (ProRes 4444)

Green and blue exports use the selected format, written as a QuickTime .mov file even for the H.264 formats. Transparent export always uses ProRes 4444 so the transparency is kept. Captions-only exports use the source video's duration, timing, and audio, follow the Resolution setting, and replace the picture with the chosen colour or transparency. The save panel proposes Project Name Captions Only.mov. Captions-only exports leave out Change the video behind. Boxes and highlights that are blurred or glass, and 3D letters in a material that reflects or shows the video, such as Glass, are baked in with the source video showing through. They line up only over that same video, in the same position and at the same timing: moving, scaling, retiming or colour grading the video under them shows the difference.

During export

Playback pauses while exporting so the preview doesn't compete with the export, and your Mac stays awake until it ends. The Exporting video panel shows the percentage. Click Cancel in the panel, or Cancel Export in the menu; nothing unfinished is left behind. You can keep editing while it runs: the export uses the captions, style and style layers as they were when it started. Going Home, opening another file, closing the window or quitting asks first, because it stops the export. When the export finishes or is cancelled, the viewer updates again; playback stays paused.

When an export finishes, the panel shows Export finished with the file's name: click Reveal in Finder to see the file, or Done to close the panel. If it fails, a banner at the bottom of the window gives the reason, usually starting "Export failed:"; click Dismiss to close it.

App settings

Click the gear at the right of the toolbar to open the Settings popover. (There's no Settings menu item.)

• Under UI Theme Color, click a swatch (Blue, Purple, Violet, Red, Orange, Gold, Green, Teal, Cyan, Noir or Silver) or drag the Hue and Lightness sliders. The colour applies right away, across the app and its Dock icon.
• Show Timeline Hints: the hints explain upper-half selection and lower-half scrubbing. Turning them off removes the hint text but doesn't change how the timeline works.
• Show Welcome Message: shows the welcome card on the landing screen each time the app opens. To turn it off from the card, tick Don't show again and click Get Started.

Help menu

Help > Easy Caption Pro User Guide (Command-?) opens this guide in its own window, with a chapter list and a Search documentation field.

Help > Send Feedback… opens a pre-addressed email to support@easycaptionpro.com with the app and macOS versions filled in; nothing is attached. If no email app is set up, the address is copied to the clipboard instead.

Keyboard shortcuts

The transcription settings sheet also follows standard macOS actions: Return activates the primary transcription button and Escape cancels the sheet.

Troubleshooting

A video won't open

If the file isn't a video this Mac can play, an alert says "It isn't a video this Mac can play." and no project is made; a project you had open stays open. A video still in iCloud is checked only by its file type until it downloads, so if it then can't play, the project is still added: click Cancel and delete that project.

The project asks me to locate a video

The project can't find its video: the file may have been deleted, its drive may be disconnected, or the project came from another Mac. Click Locate File… and select the original video.

The first transcription is slow

The model is being prepared or loaded; meanwhile the progress panel shows Warming up… and Warming Up Model…, and near the end the first run can also show Loading Timing Model…. The first use of each model on a Mac, or the first after a macOS update, takes longest. If you switch between Medium and Large often, turn on Keep models in memory when switching. The note "First run is slower while the model loads into memory." shows on every transcription; only the first run with each model is slower.

Transcription reports that no speech was detected

The message reads "No speech was detected by Whisper." Confirm that the video has an audible speech track and that the correct file was opened. Try the Large model for difficult audio, or select a smaller range with clear speech and retranscribe it.

Some words are missing

Select that part in the timeline, right-click it and choose Retranscribe Selected Audio. Set Model to Large (best quality), the more accurate model, and click Transcribe Selection. Only the selected part changes; your other edits stay.

Transcription finishes with no captions

Music- or effects-only audio can finish without captions and without an error: sound cues are removed unless Include sound cues is on, so there may be nothing left to caption.

Transcription stops with an error

• "The video couldn't be downloaded from iCloud. Check your connection and try again.": the video is stored only in iCloud and has to download first. Check your internet connection, or download the file in Finder, then try again.
• "No audio track found in video": the file has no sound to transcribe.

Captions do not match the speech closely

• Adjust the word's start and end fields in the Caption Editor.
• Drag its timing handles in the timeline.
• Select the affected range and use Retranscribe Selected Audio.

I cannot merge selected words

Merge Words appears only when two or more words are selected and all of them are in the same segment. If they span segments, choose Create New Segment to put them in one segment, then select them again and choose Merge Words.

A font or colour change is not visible

Check:

• Whether Whole Video, Current Segment or Word is selected.
• Whether Layer is selected, or the segment is on a style layer that sets the same value.
• Whether the word or segment already has a higher-priority override.
• Whether spoken/played-word effects in Animation are currently replacing the base font or colour.

Use Reset to Whole Video (named after the layer when the segment is on one), Reset to Current Segment at Word scope, or Reset to Global Style if you want the selected content to inherit the broader style again.

A filter's Text Only option is missing

Text Only appears only when that filter is on and the caption has a box (Box & Outline › Box isn't None).

Preview playback is heavy

Lower Playback Quality to 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4. This reduces preview work without changing the final export resolution.

Export is disabled

Export with Captions requires:

• A loaded video.
• At least one caption.
• No export already in progress.

Export Captions Only has the same three requirements.

Transparent export does not show the source video

This is intentional. Transparent (ProRes 4444) exports only the caption layer with transparency. Use Export with Captions to burn the captions over the source video. Boxes and highlights that are blurred or glass, and 3D letters in a material that reflects or shows the video, such as Glass, still show the source video, baked in.

A project save fails

The app shows a banner reading "Project save failed:" with the reason. Check that the Mac has available storage and that the app can write to its projects folder, ~/Library/Containers/com.easycaptionpro.app/Data/Library/Application Support/EasyCaptionPro/projects. Keep the app open while resolving the issue so a later change or quit can trigger another save attempt.