Headline captions are a Bebas title row, not spoken words

Headline is Bebas Neue, tall caps, position top, kind=subtitle in the registry but the job is a hook line. Do not feed it a transcript.

The family reads as a title card or a news chyron. It is not karaoke. It is not a word-pop on spoken audio. kind is subtitle because the whole line appears as a block — there is no effect field, no per-word scale, no typewriter. The job is still a hook you wrote: a number, a dare, a recap. Auto-captioning speech into Headline is how a title row becomes a dump of whatever the mic heard.

Registry vs job

Five presets share one face. The base is bebas_top: fontId bebas, white fill, black outline width 1, position top, kind subtitle, isBase true. The face itself is Bebas Neue — a display caption/overlay face, not Ideogram, not a generate. Tall condensed caps. That is the whole look.

kind=subtitle means the line arrives together. It does not mean “this family is for subtitles of speech.” Classic and Paper are the transcript families. Headline is the family the catalogue describes as hooks, openers, news-style recaps, listicle intros. Platforms in the group meta: YouTube Shorts and TikTok. Put it at the top so it sits above the subject and above the platform chrome at the bottom of a 9:16 frame.

Burn-in is not a generate. Picking Headline does not invent a clip. It typesets a string onto a file you already kept. Asking a video model to “put a Bebas headline in the shot” is how you get painted glyphs you cannot edit.

The five variants only move colour, stroke, and seat

Inside the group, nothing about the face changes. Bebas Neue stays. kind stays subtitle. There is still no effect.

• Headline (bebas_top) — white on black stroke, top. Judge the family here.
• Headline Bottom (headline_bottom) — same type, bottom of frame.
• Headline Yellow (headline_yellow) — fill #FFE94A, black stroke, top.
• Headline Red (headline_red) — white fill, red stroke, top.
• Headline Center (headline_center) — white on black, middle.

Yellow fill and red stroke are brand knobs, not a new family. Bottom and middle are safe-area knobs. If the hook has to clear a face, stay on top. If the plate is a sky or a ceiling, bottom can read. Middle will sit on the subject; use it when the subject is not a face.

Do not mix variants shot to shot hoping the family “feels fresh.” The family is the recognition. Variant is how you match a house colour without leaving Bebas.

Overlay the hook. Do not transcribe into it.

The words are yours. Add a text overlay to a video burns one authored line for the whole file — hook, badge, CTA — at top / center / bottom. That is the job Headline was drawn for: one title row, persistent, not listening.

If the line has to change on a clock you can name — “WAIT,” then the number, then the dare — that is timed overlays, still authored, still not a transcript. Add captions to a video is the transcribe-and-burn path. Speech in, timed type out. Feed that path a mute plate and you have spent a caption pass on silence. Feed it Headline as if the family would write the hook and you have spent a transcript pass on a title you already knew.

Position is an enum, not a pixel. Overlay before you reframe and the title that sat clean on 16:9 sits in the TikTok chrome after a 9:16 crop. Crop the keeper. Then print.

A house style across many videos is a family plus one variant, written down. Headline plus bebas_top is a spec. “Make it look like a thumbnail” is not.

Not Snap. Not a generate.

Snap is the other loud family, and it is a different object. Snap is kind timed, effect pop, Anton, each spoken word scaling and recolouring. It needs audible speech and a word clock. Headline has no effect and does not care whether anyone spoke. Putting Snap on a silent title card is a timed family with nothing to time. Putting Headline on a fast ad-read is a title row sitting still while the mouth moves. Pick the job.

Do not ask Ideogram, Imagen, or a scene model to set Bebas in the picture. Caption faces live in the font registry and the caption catalogue. A generate that “also happens to have big type” is a misspelled hook you will regenerate to fix. Lock the picture. Burn Headline on the file you are keeping.

The test: who wrote the words, and do they need to look like a chyron?

If you wrote a hook and you want tall caps up top, this group. If someone spoke and you need the words as a transcript, a subtitle family or the transcribe tool. If each word has to punch, Snap — and only if the tape has speech. Headline is the title row. Treat it like one.

FAQ

Why is kind subtitle if the job is a title?

kind=subtitle is the registry class: the whole line appears as a block. There is no word-timed effect. The job is still a hook you authored. Do not read subtitle as “dump the transcript here.”

Can I auto-caption a talking clip and pick Headline?

You can attach the look to a transcript pass. You should not. Headline is a title row. A transcript of speech in tall caps is a chyron of whatever the speaker said, including ums. Overlay the hook you wrote. Transcribe on a different family if the speech also needs to be readable muted.

Which variant should I lock?

Start at bebas_top. Move to yellow or red only for a house colour. Move to bottom or middle only if the top of this plate is unreadable. Do not rotate variants for variety.

Is Headline a way to get Bebas into an image generate?

No. Bebas Neue is a caption and overlay face. Burn it on a locked file. A still or video model asked to “letter this in Bebas” will paint glyphs. That is a generate, and it is the wrong tool for a title row.