Editing caption words and timing in the editor
By Captionwale · 6 November 2026
Fix misheard words, split and reshape lines, mark emphasis and spotlight, retime blocks on the timeline, and shift every caption earlier or later in one move.
Two places to edit
Nearly every change happens in one of two places. The Captions panel, opened from the Captions tool on the left-hand rail, lists the words line by line, and it is where you correct spellings and shape the lines. The timeline across the bottom of the screen shows the same words as blocks laid against time, and it is where you change when they appear and disappear.
None of this touches your transcription minutes. Words, line breaks and timings are all edited on the transcript you already have, and the preview redraws as you work, so you can check each change by playing the moment again.
What the Captions panel holds
From top to bottom, the panel has three parts:
- Caption settings. On a single-line template, Max words per caption sets how long a caption may grow, from one word up to eight. Min duration keeps very short captions up long enough to be read, and Gap between captions leaves a few frames of air between one caption and the next. The captions regroup live as you move the sliders.
- Captions early or late? A box for moving every caption at once by a set number of milliseconds, with a Re-sync to audio button underneath for drift that grows as the clip plays.
- The caption cards. There is one card for each caption line, showing its start and end times, with its words laid out so you can click them.
Correcting words and reshaping lines
Click a word on any card to select it, and the playhead jumps there so you can hear it straight away. Double-click to type over it, then press Enter to keep the new spelling. Only the text changes; the word holds on to the moment it was spoken, so a correction cannot knock the timing out of step.
With a word selected you can split its line, so that a new caption begins at that word. That is how you put a break exactly where the speaker paused for breath. Other buttons on the selected word push it onto the line before or the line after, or delete it. Emphasise marks the word for the template's highlight, and Spotlight hands one word the whole frame, on templates built for either; where a template has neither effect, those buttons stay hidden.
To deal with several captions together, tick them in the list, and a bar appears with actions for the whole selection. A caption the speech never produced, such as a sound cue or a note in brackets, can be written in with the + Line button at the top of the panel.
Retiming on the timeline
The timeline has two views, chosen with the WORD and LINE switch at its top left. WORD draws a block for every word and is the one for precise fixes. LINE draws one block per caption and is quicker for moving whole lines about. Drag either edge of a block to make it begin or end at another moment, or drag the block itself to slide it along.
Snapping is on to begin with, so edges land on the playhead and on the edges of the blocks around them. Hold Alt to place an edge freely, or turn snapping off with its own button. The zoom buttons stretch a crowded second across the screen, and the reset button fits the whole clip back in. Dragging along the time ruler at the top scrubs through the video, which is the fastest way to hear a word again.
Moving every caption earlier or later
Sometimes every caption is wrong by the same amount: all slightly early, or all a beat late. Fixing that one block at a time would take ages. Open Captions early or late?, type a figure in milliseconds, and press Shift all. A negative figure moves everything earlier and a positive one moves it later. The box steps in fifty-millisecond jumps; start with a small value, play the clip, and adjust.
When captions begin in step and slide further out the longer the clip runs, no single shift will cure it. Press Re-sync to audio instead. It listens to the soundtrack again and lays the words back onto the speech, with no new transcription and no minutes spent, and you can undo it if the result is worse. Why captions drift explains both patterns and what causes them.
Keyboard shortcuts
On a computer, a reminder of these sits along the top of the timeline. They save a great deal of clicking during a long correction pass:
- Space starts and stops playback.
- The left and right arrows step to the previous or the next word.
- E toggles emphasis on the selected word, and S toggles spotlight.
- Enter splits the line at the selected word.
- Backspace removes the selected word.
- Cmd+Z on a Mac, or Ctrl+Z on Windows, takes back the last change; the curved arrows in the top bar undo and redo as well.
Questions
Why can't I find Max words per caption?
It shows only while a single-line template is selected. Multi-line and animated designs fix how many words they display, so the slider is hidden for them rather than shown doing nothing.
What is the difference between Emphasise and Spotlight?
Emphasise gives a word whatever highlight the template uses for key words, while the rest of the caption stays in view. Spotlight lets one word take over the frame for its moment. A template's design decides which of the two it offers.
Does editing captions cost transcription minutes?
No. Retyping, splitting, retiming, shifting and re-syncing all work on the transcript you already have. Only transcribing a clip draws on your minutes.