Glossary · accessibility
What is Burned-in captions?
Burned-in captions are text rendered permanently into the video's pixels at export, so they cannot be switched off, restyled or translated afterwards. They are standard on short-form because Instagram, TikTok and Shorts autoplay muted and the platforms' own caption tools are inconsistent. The upside is total control of font, size, position and animation. The downsides are real: no accessibility toggle, no language switching, no search benefit unless you also upload a proper caption file, and a permanent problem if you later crop the same video to another shape and the text ends up half off-screen.
What does Burned-in captions mean for a business in Pakistan?
CapCut's auto-caption feature is what most Pakistani editors use, and it mangles Urdu words and English-Urdu switching, so every line needs reading before export. Urdu script in burned captions also needs a font that renders Nastaliq properly, since many templates fall back to a broken Arabic form. For Roman Urdu, which is what most short-form uses anyway, that problem disappears entirely.
A worked example
A 45-second Reel is exported with burned captions at 64px, positioned about 380 pixels up from the bottom to clear the Instagram caption and buttons. The same file cross-posted to YouTube Shorts still reads fine, but a 16:9 crop for Facebook slices the text in half, so that version has to be re-exported from the original project.
Terms that go with this one
These come up in the same conversations and are worth reading together.
- CaptionscaptionsCaptions are the on-screen text of what is said, in the same language as the audio, and they exist so a video works with the sound off and for people…
- SubtitlessubtitlesSubtitles are translated text of the dialogue, written for someone who can hear the audio but does not speak the language. That is the real…
- Safe zonesafe zoneA safe zone is the part of the frame where your text and important subject will not be covered by the app's own interface or trimmed by a crop. Every…
- Aspect ratioaspect ratioAspect ratio is the shape of the frame, written as width to height. Three matter now: 16:9 for landscape YouTube and Facebook video, 9:16 for the…
- Cross-postingcross-postingCross-posting is publishing the same piece on more than one platform. It is worth doing, because audiences barely overlap, but the naive version —…
Burned-in captions — quick answers
What does Burned-in captions mean?
Burned-in captions are text rendered permanently into the video's pixels at export, so they cannot be switched off, restyled or translated afterwards. They are standard on short-form because Instagram, TikTok and Shorts autoplay muted and the platforms' own caption tools are inconsistent.
Burned-in captions ko Urdu mein kya kehte hain?
برنڈ اِن کیپشنز — though in practice almost everyone in Pakistan says "hard captions / burned-in captions". CapCut's auto-caption feature is what most Pakistani editors use, and it mangles Urdu words and English-Urdu switching, so every line needs reading before export.
Why does Burned-in captions matter for a business in Pakistan?
CapCut's auto-caption feature is what most Pakistani editors use, and it mangles Urdu words and English-Urdu switching, so every line needs reading before export. Urdu script in burned captions also needs a font that renders Nastaliq properly, since many templates fall back to a broken Arabic form. For Roman Urdu, which is what most short-form uses anyway, that problem disappears entirely.
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