Subtitles People Can Actually Read

What it is for

A correction and layout pass on automatic subtitles: names and numbers first, then line length, placement and contrast, then the choice between burning in and shipping a file. Use it on anything that will be watched muted. It prevents captions that are confidently wrong or unreadable on a phone.

The skill Copy

Automatic transcription gets ordinary speech right and gets everything that
matters wrong: names, products, prices, jargon. The proofreading pass is not
overhead — it is the work.

Correct before you style:
- Every proper noun, product name and price. These are the words the subtitle
  exists to deliver.
- Numbers and units. "15" heard as "50" is a subtitle that lies confidently.
- The first line and the last line. They are read by the most people and
  skimmed hardest by you.
- Run a find-and-replace for the terms your field repeats. The same word comes
  out wrong the same way every time.

Then shape the lines:
- Two lines maximum, roughly forty characters each. Automatic splitting breaks
  on timing, not on meaning.
- Break at a grammatical boundary. A line ending on "the" makes the reader
  wait, and reading is what they are doing instead of watching.
- Merge cues shorter than about a second. Text that flashes is text that is
  skipped.
- Lift the block off the bottom edge for vertical video. The bottom of the
  frame belongs to the platform's buttons and description.
- Check contrast against the BRIGHTEST frame the captions sit on, not the first
  one.

Deciding how they ship:
- Burned-in captions cannot be switched off, resized or translated by the
  platform. For a muted social feed that is exactly what you want.
- For a player that accepts a subtitle file, upload the file too: it gives you
  searchable text, accessibility, and a version you can correct later without
  re-exporting the video.
- Translate only after the source language is clean. Translating an error
  produces a confident error in a language you cannot check.

How to install it Copy

1. Open the tool and start a new conversation, project or template.
2. Paste the text below wherever the tool keeps standing instructions
   — usually called system prompt, instructions, or persona.
3. Save it so it applies to every run rather than a single message.

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Where it came from