# Set the shape and captions

Both are on the **Look** tab. The preview shows every change straight away.

## Video shape

**Shape** sets the project's shape:

- **Landscape 16:9 (YouTube)**.
- **Vertical 9:16 (Shorts, TikTok, Reels)**.

You can export either shape from any project, whatever this is set to. See [Export the video](https://clipcat.followusai.com/docs/export.md).

### Landscape

When a recording isn't 16:9 (a phone video, say), **Beside a recording of another shape** sets what fills the sides: **Black bars**, or **The same picture, blurred**.

### Vertical

A vertical video is cropped from your landscape recording.

- **Follow the speaker** (on by default): the crop centers on your face in each kept stretch and moves only at cuts, so it never drifts mid-sentence. ClipCat finds your face on your computer after import.
- Untick it to place the crop by hand. Drag **Position** to move it left or right. With several recordings, the setting is for the recording under the playhead, and the label names it.

If no face was found in a recording, the crop stays where **Position** puts it.

## Captions

Captions are burned into the exported video, in Jost SemiBold. They're made from the words you kept, so cut words never show.

- **Add captions to the video**: on or off. The other settings work when it's on.
- **Style**: **A phrase at a time**, or **Word by word**, which highlights each word as it's spoken.
- **Capitals**: **As spoken**, **ALL CAPS** or **all lowercase**.
- **Caption background**: **None**, or **A box** behind the words.
- **Text colour** and **Box colour**: White, Black, Splice tape (yellow) or Red, or choose the picker for any colour.
- **Size**: drag to make the captions bigger or smaller.

Every export also saves the captions as an .srt file beside the video, a phrase per line, even when burned-in captions are off. Upload it to YouTube for closed captions.

To fix a word in the captions, fix it in the transcript. See [Edit the transcript](https://clipcat.followusai.com/docs/transcript.md).

Last updated 29 October 2026.

Web page: https://clipcat.followusai.com/docs/shape-and-captions