A captioned video workflow begins with the footage, not with the text: organise the source material, build a stable spoken edit, and only then transcribe, correct, group and time the captions, before styling, B-roll coordination, final review and export.
The reason for that order is purely economic: polished captions on an unstable edit are rework waiting to happen. Every replaced take, removed phrase or timing change invalidates the captions that follow it. Captions should be developed alongside a stable edit, not bolted on at the start or the end.
The thirteen steps, compressed
Define the deliverables (formats, languages, burned-in or track, who approves). Organise the source footage; do not generate a final transcript from all the unselected raw takes. Select the spoken content and build a complete first cut. Review the spoken edit: does the complete video communicate the intended message? Then captions: create and correct the transcript, build and time the groups. Then visuals: add B-roll and screen recordings, and re-check caption positions against them, because caption position is not fixed independently of the footage. Apply the caption style as one coherent system. Review the complete composition; when it feels overloaded, simplify a layer. Create versions and translations from the approved master. Export, inspect the exact file, and approve the exact delivery.
Three moments deserve their own emphasis.
Captions meet the edit, twice
Captions touch the edit at two points, and both need a check. First at creation: the transcript must represent the selected edit ("The first cut is not the final approval" losing its not in transcription is the standard accident). Second after visual work: a caption placed perfectly over a talking head can land on top of the screen recording that was added an hour later. Position review comes after the visuals, always.
Versions multiply, meaning must not
An approved master becomes hook variants, aspect-ratio versions, platform versions. Do not copy caption coordinates between formats; each ratio has its own line widths, breaks and safe composition. And translations start from the approved source transcript only, with their own readability pass, because correct words in impossible timing are still unreadable.
Keep it honest with one matched set per deliverable: video version, caption version, language, ratio, filename, reviewer, status. The video and its captions are one delivery, not two files that happen to share a folder.
Publishing is a decision
Export produces a file; inspection confirms the file; approval is a human saying yes to that exact file. The three examples worth internalising: the short-form talking head (structure before caption polish), the software tutorial (an outdated screen recording makes a correct caption misleading), and the multi-speaker edit (labels, never colour alone).
Where ReadyForm fits
ReadyForm collapses the middle of this workflow: the captions are created with the edit, timed per word, and stay attached to it through every take switch and cut, re-syncing automatically. Style comes from the brand kit; corrections happen in the story; the export always carries your saved state. What stays yours is what was always yours: the deliverable definitions, the review passes and the yes. See how the edit is made or the captions feature.