What a preset actually sets

Clicking a preset in the Style tab replaces every style setting in one go: font and weight, size, colours and their opacity, background type, outline and shadow, line height, maximum line width and the vertical position. That last item surprises people. Creator and Social Media move the text up towards the middle of the frame, so if you pick either after carefully placing your subtitles near the bottom, they jump. Choose the preset first, then fine-tune.

Presets change appearance only. Your lines, their timings and any blur band you set for old subtitles stay exactly as they were, and the draft kept in your browser remembers the style along with the text.

The eight presets side by side

Classic: Bold white Inter with a black outline and a faint drop shadow, at the bottom of the frame. The default look, and the one that blends into the video most quietly.
YouTube: Roboto at medium weight, white on a near-black box at roughly three-quarters opacity, one box per line. Instantly familiar to anyone who turns captions on in a player.
Modern: Poppins semi-bold on a rounded, translucent slate box with generous padding. Softer than a hard rectangle and reads as designed rather than default.
Minimal: Slightly smaller Inter at medium weight with no outline, only a dark soft shadow. Lets the picture breathe.
Creator: Montserrat at its heaviest weight, uppercase, bright yellow with a thick outline, larger and placed a little below centre. Loud on purpose.
Social Media: Extra-bold Poppins in dark text on an almost-white rounded box, big and set just below the middle of the frame, sized with 9:16 phones in mind.
Cinema: Regular-weight Noto Serif in a warm off-white, a fine outline and a deep soft shadow, with a touch of extra letter spacing. Quiet and literary.
High Contrast: Bold Noto Sans in pure yellow on a solid black box. Legibility comes before everything else.

Matching a preset to the footage

The right preset depends less on taste than on what sits behind the text and how big the screen will be.

Interviews, talking heads and documentaries: Classic or Cinema. An outline or shadow holds up over faces and rooms without boxing off part of the shot.
Screen recordings, slides and software tutorials: YouTube or High Contrast. White outlined text over a white interface is tiring; a solid box removes the guesswork.
Travel, food and vlog footage with bright skies and busy streets: Modern, or Classic with a heavier outline.
Vertical clips for Reels, TikTok and Shorts: Social Media or Creator, then check the safe-area guide, because app buttons and captions crowd the lower part of the screen.
Short films, music videos and mood pieces: Cinema or Minimal, where subtitles should feel like part of the grade rather than a sticker on top.
Older audiences, viewers with low vision, training and public-sector video: High Contrast, and resist the urge to shrink it.

None of these are laws. A comedy sketch can wear Cinema for the joke, and a corporate explainer can use Creator if the brand is genuinely loud. The only test that matters is whether every line can be read at a glance on the smallest screen the video will play on.

How to adapt a preset

Open the editor, load your video and add, import or generate subtitles so there is real text to look at.
Open the Style tab and click through the presets while the video plays over its busiest stretch: the brightest, most detailed shot you have.
Keep the preset that stays readable there, and change the font or weight only if a brand or tone demands it.
Adjust Size while watching the preview; for a phone audience, err on the larger side.
Tune the edge: a thicker outline, a more opaque box or a different box colour if the footage fights the text.
Set the position, then switch on "Show safe area" to make sure nothing sits where a platform draws its buttons.
Scrub through the whole video once more, watching the words rather than the action, before you click Render video.

Change one setting at a time and judge it over moving footage, not a paused frame. A paused frame flatters almost any style.

Three adaptations that hold up

Classic for a bright beach video

Keep the white text, raise the outline width under Advanced appearance and add a little shadow blur. Thin outlines vanish against sand and sky.

YouTube for a brand with a navy palette

Swap the box colour for the brand navy and keep its opacity high. The text stays white, so contrast survives while the subtitles look on-brand.

Social Media for a horizontal clip

Lower Size, move the anchor to the bottom and reduce max line width. The pill-shaped boxes stay; the oversized 9:16 scale goes.

A handy test for any adaptation: describe it in one sentence. If it needs three, the style probably has too many ideas competing in it.

What no preset can do

Some looks are out of reach whatever you tweak. Lines appear and disappear whole: nothing slides, bounces or lights up one word at a time. One style covers every line, so you can't give each speaker their own colour; put a name or a dialogue dash in the text instead. And the look exists only in the rendered MP4. An exported SRT or VTT carries text and timing, and whichever player shows that file decides the font and colours.

If "subtitle template" means something else to you, namely a timed master file that translators work from so every language shares the same cue timing, that is a workflow rather than a look, and it is explained in subtitle templates for translation.

Going deeper on each decision

Every part of a style has its own page. Choosing a subtitle font compares the nineteen bundled typefaces, readable subtitle colours deals with fills and opacity, and outline, shadow or box settles the edge treatment. For a control-by-control tour of the panel, see customizing subtitles. Several presets also have a page of their own: the yellow-on-black look, film-style subtitles and the YouTube player look. No subtitles yet? The AI subtitle generator produces a timed file first.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens: MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode
Subtitles from: AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in
You download: An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files
Cost: Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day
Privacy: The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery
Rendering needs: Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser

More: subtitle style and design

Subtitle tools

Frequently asked questions

Which subtitle style is easiest to read?

High Contrast, yellow text on a solid black box, stays legible over any footage. It is also the most intrusive, so for everyday video Classic or YouTube are a calmer compromise that still reads well.

Can I save my own style as a new preset?

There is no button for custom presets. Your adjusted style is stored with the draft of that video in this browser, so reopening the same file brings it back; for a different video, start from the same preset and repeat the changes you made.

Why did my subtitles move when I picked a preset?

Presets include a position. Creator and Social Media place the text just below the middle of the frame, while the others sit at the bottom. Pick the preset first and set the position afterwards.

Do caption styles carry over into an exported SRT or VTT?

No. Subtitle files hold text and timing only, so the styling appears in the rendered MP4 and nowhere else. A player showing the file uses its own default look.

Is there a caption style made for vertical video?

Social Media is built for 9:16: large, centred, dark text on a light rounded box. Creator also works for short vertical clips. Size scales with the video's shorter side, so it stays proportional at any resolution.