Change the font, size or colour of many Text+ clips at once

You finished the captions for a video — two hundred Text+ clips — and the client wants another font. Or the text is a bit too small everywhere. In DaVinci Resolve each Text+ clip keeps its own settings in its own Fusion composition, so a change like that means opening clip after clip. And with word-by-word captions it is worse: a new font or size changes the width of every word, so the rows no longer fit and the words collide.

ROKLIM's Layout → Text Settings changes a whole range of clips at once — and re-flows the words so the layout still fits.

What you can change for a whole range

• Font and style — with Change Font: every word switches font and stays in its place; sizes are fitted so the look stays the same.
• Colour of the text.
• Size — one size for everything, or Resize by an amount or a factor. Rows re-flow and re-stack so nothing overlaps.
• Line gap — the space between the rows of every group.
• Word gap — the space between the words of every row.
• Centre — centre each row of every group horizontally.
• Pan and Tilt — shift all clips up, down or sideways.
• Anchor of the text.

Groups are always changed whole, so half a phrase never moves on its own.

Which clips

• A time range: in Resolve press I and O around the part you want — ROKLIM reads the marks by itself.
• Or Selected clips only: select the clips on the timeline.
• Text tracks: the video tracks your Text+ clips are on.

Step by step: a new font for the whole video

1. Open ROKLIM → Layout → Text Settings.
2. Pick the new font and style.
3. Set the time range (or select the clips).
4. Press Change Font. It measures the words in the new font from the render, so every word keeps its place.
5. If you will lay out more subtitles in this font later, also run Auto-measure once (playback resolution Full; ROKLIM puts a Text+ from the Media Pool on the timeline for it and removes it after) — Layout uses it for new words.

Step by step: everything a bit bigger

1. Text Settings → Update Existing.
2. Tick Resize, choose add (for example +0.01) or multiply (for example 1.1).
3. Optional: tick Line gap or Word gap to set the spacing at the same time.
4. Run it. Each row grows from its first word, the rows below move down so they do not overlap.

Running the opposite resize brings the layout back to where it was.

Good to know

• These tools work on Text+ clips that ROKLIM laid out, and on your own Text+ clips too — they read the real position and size of every word from the render.
• For a single word, the Inspector in Resolve is still the fastest.
• To copy a whole look from one finished group to others — sizes, colours and animation — use Premade layouts.

More: Layout documentation.