How to add captions to a woodworking or shop project video on iPhone

Why caption woodworking videos

Woodworking and shop project videos, such as a build in parts, a joinery how-to, a jig walkthrough or a finished-piece reveal, are watched with the sound off and paused by viewers who want to copy a cut. Captions let them read each measurement and step, and they help viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing.

This guide is for shop builds with loud power tools. For home repair, gardening and other hands-on how-tos, see the DIY tutorial guide; for showing the business side of a maker shop, the small business guide. CaptionAddr burns the captions into the picture, so they show wherever you post.

Caption a woodworking video on iPhone

1. Talk with the tools off. Explain the next cut, then run the saw, router or sander, or record a voiceover over the build afterward. A dust collector or shop fan running in the background can cover your words too, and CaptionAddr doesn’t remove noise.
2. Choose the video. Tap Select Video in CaptionAddr and pick the clip with Apple’s Photos picker. Vertical, square and landscape videos all work, and the video keeps its shape.
3. Let the captions generate. Captions start as soon as the video opens; keep the app open; the English speech is transcribed on your iPhone, not on a server.
4. Check dimensions, joints and wood names. Fractions, board sizes, joint names and wood species are the words most likely to come out wrong. Correct them in Edit Captions. You can edit, delete and reorder words, with undo and redo.
5. Keep the workpiece in view. Choose one of the 20 fonts and a size that reads on a phone, turn on the tinted background over wood grain or a cluttered bench, and drag the captions away from the cut line and your hands.
6. Export and post. Tap Export Video to save the captioned copy to Photos, then upload it to TikTok, Reels, Shorts or any other app. The watermark is off unless you turn it on.

Tips for woodworking captions

• Say every measurement. Read the number off the tape out loud, such as “three quarters of an inch,” because captions come from your speech, not from the tape, the plans or a cut list.
• Check fractions and board sizes. A fraction or a size like “two by four” can come out as digits or as words. Make each one read the way you want in Edit Captions.
• Say the part number. For a build in parts, say “part one” at the start of each clip, because the app doesn’t add titles.
• Delete the shop noise words. Remove stray words the app picks up from a radio or a running tool in Edit Captions; the sound still plays in the audio.
• Keep your original. CaptionAddr exports a new copy and leaves the original clip in your library.

Limits

• Speech only. CaptionAddr captions spoken English. It doesn’t read tape measures, plans or text shown on screen, and it doesn’t caption tool sounds or music.
• No audio changes. The app doesn’t remove saw, sander or dust collector noise or change the audio; deleting a word removes it from the captions only.
• Captions only. The app doesn’t add cut lists, diagrams, dimension labels or titles, and you can only fix, delete or reorder the transcribed words.
• English only. CaptionAddr transcribes English speech and doesn’t translate.
• Single-word captions. Words appear one at a time, timed automatically, always in uppercase; there are no speaker labels, full-sentence layouts or manual per-word timing.
• Length. Free covers videos up to 2 minutes; CaptionAddr Pro covers up to 30 minutes. CaptionAddr doesn’t trim, split or combine clips, so cut a long build into parts in Photos or your video editor first. The App Store shows the current Pro price in your currency.
• Burned-in captions only. There is no SRT, VTT or text export, and the app doesn’t post to social platforms.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• How to add captions to a DIY or how-to tutorial on iPhone
• How to add captions to a small business behind-the-scenes video on iPhone
• Captions for YouTube Shorts

All caption guides →