Reveal captions keep each word on screen as it lands

Reveal (/caption-styles/group/reveal) is kind=timed, effect=typewriter, TikTok Sans. Words appear one at a time and stay — a built line, not Snap's pop-and-recolor. Alignment has to be clean or the build looks late.

This is a caption look, not a generate. Nothing in the family invents a sentence. It typesets a clock you already have — a transcript, or lines you wrote and timed. Pick Reveal when the line should accumulate. Pick something else when each word should punch.

What the group actually loads

Five presets, one decision. The base is Reveal (id=typewriter). kind is timed. style.effect is typewriter. style.fontId is tiktoksans — TikTok Sans, the Social Bold face, not Ideogram and not a generate. White fill, black outline at width 1, bottom of frame. The live word takes accentColor #FFD700.

The other four members change only the accent: Reveal Cyan #22D3EE, Reveal Pink #FF4785, Reveal Lime #A3E635, Reveal Mono #FFFFFF (no hue jump; the word still appears). Position stays bottom. Font stays TikTok Sans. Effect stays typewriter. Lime is not a new family. It is how loud the arriving word is against the words that already landed.

Burn-in is finishing. The group does not write copy, does not hear the file, and does not spend a video-model credit. Lock the picture, then pick Reveal.

Built line, not Snap's pop-and-recolor

Snap is also kind=timed. That is the whole overlap. Snap's base (word_pop) uses effect=pop, Anton, accent #FF4785: each spoken word scales up and recolors. The punch is the current token. The rest of the line is not a construction.

Reveal leaves every landed word on screen. The viewer watches a sentence get built. That is why it fits a voiceover walking toward a punchline, a list that is meant to be read as it arrives, a "wait for it" structure. Against a fast read it lags. The animation is the edit. If the delivery is a machine-gun hook, Snap is the family; Reveal will look late even when the transcript is perfect.

Do not treat Reveal as "Classic with a typewriter." Classic is kind=subtitle: the whole chunk appears together, also on TikTok Sans. Subtitle families forgive a small drift because the eye reads a phrase. Reveal puts a single arriving word in charge. If that word is late, the build is the bug.

Mono is the quiet Reveal. Same typewriter, no gold flash. Use it when you want the accumulation without a highlight that fights a busy lower third.

Alignment has to be clean

A typewriter caption that lands a beat after the mouth — or after the beat you authored — looks broken in a way a static subtitle does not. The family is advertising the clock. Protect the clock.

If the words are speech, caption from a clean track. Music under the voice, HVAC hum, overlapping speakers: the transcriber guesses, then Reveal builds the guess. Isolate first. Then add captions and pick this group. Karaoke families have no error budget. Subtitle families do.

If the words are yours, you are not transcribing. You are timing. Add timed text overlays to my video is the named agent job: add_timestamped_captions, each line with its own start_sec and end_sec. Nothing is listened to. You supply the copy and the windows. Position, size, and color apply to the set. That job is still a burn-in, still not a generate, and it is not the Reveal preset. It is how you sequence authored cards when there is no mouth to follow.

Reveal on a transcript uses the word clock. Authored timed overlays use your seconds. Mixing the two in your head is how a typewriter build gets attached to timestamps that were meant for three posters.

Crop before you caption. Bottom-locked type sits in a different safe zone after a 9:16 reframe. A build that was tight on 16:9 will sit in the TikTok chrome after the crop, and every arriving word will feel late because it is also in the wrong place.

Finishing, not a model row

Do not prompt Veo, Kling, or Seedance to "type the hook on screen." Generated glyphs are a picture of a sentence. You cannot restyle them. You cannot fix a spelling without a new take. Reveal exists so the words can change without a new picture.

Do not pick Reveal to make a dull take look edited. A persistent CTA wants a subtitle family or a single overlay. Reveal on a line that never needed to build still requires a clean clock.

House style is this family plus one accent, held. Switching to Snap on the next post because the hook felt louder throws away the recognition the build was earning. If the first word is late, do not change the font. Fix the alignment.

FAQ

Is Reveal the same as Snap with a different font?

No. Both are kind=timed. Snap pops and recolors the current word (Anton, effect=pop). Reveal types each word in and leaves it (TikTok Sans, effect=typewriter). The reading model is different. Fast punch: Snap. Accumulating line: Reveal.

Does the timed-overlay agent job apply this typewriter effect?

No. Add timed text overlays burns copy you wrote at timestamps you set. It does not transcribe, and it is not the Reveal group. Use it when the words never lived in the audio. Use the Reveal presets when you are burning a word-timed look onto a clock — usually a caption pass, not a poster pass.

Why does the build look late even when the words are right?

The effect is the arrival. A transcript that lags the mouth, or authored start_sec values that sit after the cut, will show the word after the moment. Isolate dirty speech before you caption. Recut before you timestamp. Do not switch to Mono to hide a late clock.

Should I pick Cyan because my brand is teal?

Yes — that is what the variants are for. Stay inside Reveal. Changing family to get a colour is how you lose the build. Cyan, pink, lime, and gold are accent-only. Mono is the same build with no hue jump.