name: display-captions description: Displaying captions in Remotion with TikTok-style pages and word highlighting metadata: tags: captions, subtitles, display, tiktok, highlight

Displaying captions in Remotion

This guide explains how to display captions in Remotion, assuming you already have captions in the Caption format.

Prerequisites

First, the @remotion/captions package needs to be installed. If it is not installed, use the following command:

npx remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses npm
bunx remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses bun
yarn remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses yarn
pnpm exec remotion add @remotion/captions # If project uses pnpm

Creating pages

Use createTikTokStyleCaptions() to group captions into pages. The combineTokensWithinMilliseconds option controls how many words appear at once:

import {useMemo} from 'react';
import {createTikTokStyleCaptions} from '@remotion/captions';
import type {Caption} from '@remotion/captions';

// How often captions should switch (in milliseconds)
// Higher values = more words per page
// Lower values = fewer words (more word-by-word)
const SWITCH_CAPTIONS_EVERY_MS = 1200;

const {pages} = useMemo(() => {
  return createTikTokStyleCaptions({
    captions,
    combineTokensWithinMilliseconds: SWITCH_CAPTIONS_EVERY_MS,
  });
}, [captions]);

Rendering with Sequences

Map over the pages and render each one in a <Sequence>. Calculate the start frame and duration from the page timing:

import {Sequence, useVideoConfig, AbsoluteFill} from 'remotion';
import type {TikTokPage} from '@remotion/captions';

const CaptionedContent: React.FC = () => {
  const {fps} = useVideoConfig();

  return (
    <AbsoluteFill>
      {pages.map((page, index) => {
        const nextPage = pages[index + 1] ?? null;
        const startFrame = (page.startMs / 1000) * fps;
        const endFrame = Math.min(
          nextPage ? (nextPage.startMs / 1000) * fps : Infinity,
          startFrame + (SWITCH_CAPTIONS_EVERY_MS / 1000) * fps,
        );
        const durationInFrames = endFrame - startFrame;

        if (durationInFrames <= 0) {
          return null;
        }

        return (
          <Sequence
            key={index}
            from={startFrame}
            durationInFrames={durationInFrames}
          >
            <CaptionPage page={page} />
          </Sequence>
        );
      })}
    </AbsoluteFill>
  );
};

Word highlighting

A caption page contains tokens which you can use to highlight the currently spoken word:

import {AbsoluteFill, useCurrentFrame, useVideoConfig} from 'remotion';
import type {TikTokPage} from '@remotion/captions';

const HIGHLIGHT_COLOR = '#39E508';

const CaptionPage: React.FC<{page: TikTokPage}> = ({page}) => {
  const frame = useCurrentFrame();
  const {fps} = useVideoConfig();

  // Current time relative to the start of the sequence
  const currentTimeMs = (frame / fps) * 1000;
  // Convert to absolute time by adding the page start
  const absoluteTimeMs = page.startMs + currentTimeMs;

  return (
    <AbsoluteFill style={{justifyContent: 'center', alignItems: 'center'}}>
      <div style={{fontSize: 80, fontWeight: 'bold', whiteSpace: 'pre'}}>
        {page.tokens.map((token) => {
          const isActive =
            token.fromMs <= absoluteTimeMs && token.toMs > absoluteTimeMs;

          return (
            <span
              key={token.fromMs}
              style={{color: isActive ? HIGHLIGHT_COLOR : 'white'}}
            >
              {token.text}
            </span>
          );
        })}
      </div>
    </AbsoluteFill>
  );
};