Paper captions sit on a white card so mute viewers can still read

Paper is Montserrat black type on a white rounded card — maximum readability, still kind=subtitle. Use it when the plate is busy and a stroke would vanish.

A thin black ring around white letters is a bet that the footage behind those letters is dark enough, simple enough, and still enough for the ring to hold. A lot of plates lose that bet: a white wall, a sunny store, a chrome panel, a snow field, a product shot already full of type. The stroke disappears into the highlight. The mute viewer gets a moving picture and no line. Paper does not bet. It puts a white card under black letters and the contrast is the card.

A stroke is not contrast when the plate is busy

Classic-family captions assume a stroke can separate letter from picture. That is true on a talking-head against a dim room. It is false on a busy plate: tiled backsplashes, retail fluorescents, brick, stainless, sky. White type with a one-pixel ring becomes a ghost. You did not fail at copy. You failed at backing.

Paper is the family for that miss. The base preset is Paper (white_box): kind subtitle, Montserrat (fontId: montserrat), black letters (fontcolor: black), white card (bgcolor: white), bottom of frame. No outline. No word-pop effect. The card is the contrast.

Burn-in is not a generate. You already have a file. Add subtitles automatically transcribes speech and burns a styled track. Pick Paper so the track survives the plate. A video prompt that says "white caption box" will invent a cousin overlay, restamp it every frame, and still not be a subtitle track you can restyle.

If the clip has no speech, Paper is still the wrong tool for silence. A subtitle family over music-only footage captions nothing. For a mute product shot that needs one authored line, that is an overlay, not a transcript. Paper's job is readable speech-on-picture when the picture would eat a stroke.

Paper is a subtitle card, not karaoke

kind=subtitle means the line arrives as a block, timed to the voice, and updates as a block. It is not Snap. It is not Reveal. Those two families are kind=timed: each spoken word scales or types on. Paper does not do that. There is no effect on the Paper presets. If you wanted a word pop, you left this group.

A card that holds a whole phrase is why a mute viewer can finish the sentence on a busy plate. Word-timed type on a white card is a different product, and it is not what this group ships.

Use Paper when the words are a transcript, the footage is bright or already carrying type, and you would rather hide a strip of picture than lose the line. Do not use it when the caption is the first frame — a number, a verdict, a "wait for it." That is Headline or Snap. Do not use it on dark cinematic b-roll because you liked the card; Ink is the black-card cousin, and a white slab on a night plate is a flashlight.

The group page is the catalog of five looks. This page is only the busy-plate decision: stroke vanished, card stays.

The five variants are furniture, not new fonts

Every Paper preset keeps Montserrat, black type, a pale card, and subtitle timing. The variants change backing, corners, or position — not the family.

• Paper (white_box) — white rounded card, bottom. The one to judge the family by.
• Paper Square (paper_square) — same card, borderRadius: 0. Use when the picture is already full of round product corners and a rounded chip would look like packaging.
• Paper Sheer (paper_sheer) — card at 88% (bgcolor: #FFFFFFE0). Use when you need the contrast but still want a ghost of the plate through the slab.
• Paper Cream (paper_cream) — warm cream card (#FFF3DC). Use when pure white fights a tungsten interior.
• Paper Top (paper_top) — white rounded card, top of frame. Use when bottom chrome (like, share, product stickers) would cover the line.

Paper Top is not a new style. It is the same card moved because the safe zone moved. Switching from Paper to Halo because "this week's clip felt outdoor" is how the account stops being one show. Stay in the group. Change the variant.

Montserrat is a caption/overlay face in this stack. It is not Ideogram, and it is not a generate. You are burning a preset onto a file, not drawing letters into the picture. Pack-shot type inside a still is an image model on a different day. Paper will not letter a carton. It will letter a transcript.

Burn-in is not a generate

Picking Paper does not spend a video credit. Running automatic subtitles is a caption pass on a file you already paid to make. Do not regenerate the clip to "add a white box." You will get a new picture, a new box that crawls, and no subtitle track.

Keep one family on the series. Paper on a tutorial Tuesday and Classic on the same tutorial Thursday is two shows. Variants exist so you can dodge a logo without leaving the card. If the product sits in the lower third, Paper Top. If the wall is already white, Sheer or Cream — and if even Sheer vanishes, recrop. Do not switch to a stroke and hope.

Mute viewers are the audience this family is for. A stroke that vanishes is a caption you did not ship. Put the card down. Leave the generate alone.

FAQ

Is Paper word-timed?

No. Every Paper preset is kind=subtitle. The line appears as a block. Snap and Reveal are the timed families. Paper has no effect.

When would I pick Classic instead?

When the plate is dark or simple enough that a white letter plus a black stroke already reads. Classic is a ring, not a card. If the ring disappears into a highlight, you wanted Paper.

Does the white card hide the product?

It can, if the product lives in the lower third. Use Paper Top, or crop the product up before you caption. Do not regenerate the clip to move the object out from under a card you have not tried at the top.

Can I prompt Ideogram to draw this caption into the still?

That is a generate of letters in a picture, not a subtitle track. Paper is burn-in on a finished file, Montserrat on a white card. Pack-shot type is a different job. Do not confuse the two.