SRT vs VTT: which caption file should you use?
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When you finish a video in CueSprint you can download two caption files: SRT and VTT. They look almost identical when you open them, but editors, platforms and web players treat them differently. Here is what each one is and when to pick it.
Add captions nowWhat a caption file is
A caption file is plain text that pairs each line of dialogue with the moment it appears and disappears. The video itself is untouched: a player or editor reads the file and draws the text on top. That is the key difference with the MP4 you export from CueSprint, where the captions are burned in and become part of the picture.
Caption files are useful when you want viewers to switch captions on and off, when you want to edit the text or style in another program, or when a platform uses the text to understand your video.
SRT: the universal format
SRT (SubRip) is the oldest and most widely supported format. Each caption has a number, a time range and the text:
1
00:00:00,100 --> 00:00:01,700
Hello everyone,
2
00:00:01,700 --> 00:00:03,200
welcome to the channel.Note the comma before the milliseconds. SRT has no official styling: colours, fonts and positions are left to the player. That simplicity is exactly why almost everything accepts it: YouTube Studio, Facebook, LinkedIn, Vimeo, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut for desktop and most other editors.
VTT: the web standard
WebVTT (.vtt) is the caption format of the web: it is what the HTML <track> element plays in every modern browser. It starts with a WEBVTT header, uses a dot before the milliseconds and can carry extra information such as positioning and styling.
WEBVTT
00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:01.700
Hello <00:00:00.400>every<00:00:00.700>oneThe VTT that CueSprint exports includes a timestamp before every word (the <00:00:00.400> tags). Web players can use them for a karaoke effect, highlighting each word as it is spoken. Programs that don't understand these tags simply ignore them and show the line as normal text.
Which one should you download?
| Where the captions go | Best file |
|---|---|
| YouTube Studio, Facebook, LinkedIn | SRT |
| Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut desktop | SRT |
| Vimeo | SRT or VTT |
| A video on your own website (HTML5 player) | VTT |
| Karaoke-style highlight in a web player | VTT |
| TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts | Neither: export the MP4 with burned-in captions |
When in doubt, use SRT. If a tool rejects it, try the VTT.
How the lines are built
In CueSprint, each SRT or VTT cue is one caption group: the same blocks you see in the preview. The Words per group setting in the editor therefore decides how long each line is. For YouTube or horizontal videos 4–5 words per line read naturally; for vertical clips, 2–3. Fix any word in the editor before downloading: the text in the file is exactly what you see.
Common problems
- Accents or symbols look broken: CueSprint files are UTF-8. If an old program shows strange characters, look for an encoding option when importing and choose UTF-8.
- The captions are out of sync: make sure you attach the file to the same video you captioned, without trimming its start. If you cut the video afterwards, generate the captions again from the final cut.
- A platform says the file is invalid: some platforms are strict about file names or extensions (Facebook, for example, wants the language in the name). See our guide on uploading SRT files to social platforms.