Where should I place text so it is not cut off?
Titles, captions and lower-thirds keep vanishing behind buttons or sliding off the edge of the frame. The fix is one idea: the safe zone. Here is exactly where text survives on every platform, and how to check it before you post.
By Thomas, founder of CutScore · Updated June 2026
I have done this myself, more than once. You spend twenty minutes getting a title card to look right in your editor, the kerning is nice, the colour pops, you export, you post, and then you open the app on your phone and the bottom line of your perfect title is sitting underneath the progress bar. Or the username. Or the little "Follow" button. The text was fine. The frame was not the frame.
Here is the thing nobody tells you. Your editing canvas shows the whole rectangle. The app does not. TikTok, Reels and Shorts paint their own interface on top of your video: a caption block, your handle, a stack of buttons down the right side, the sound credit, the progress bar along the bottom. None of that exists in your timeline, so you place text in space the viewer will never actually see clear.
And it is worse than just ugly. A lot of people watch on mute, so your captions are the video for them. If the text is half-covered, the message is half-delivered. The fix is not better fonts. It is knowing where the frame is really usable, and keeping your words inside that box. That box has a name.
Where text survives on each layout.
Same idea every time: leave a margin so nothing important touches the edge, and keep clear of wherever the platform parks its buttons. The exact margins change with the aspect ratio.
| Layout | Keep text inside | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| 9:16 vertical · TikTok | top 12% / bottom 25% clear | Right-side button rail and the caption block both sit over the lower right. |
| 9:16 vertical · Reels | ~10% side margin | Caption, audio name and the action buttons crowd the bottom third. |
| 9:16 vertical · Shorts | lower-middle, not bottom | Title, channel chip and the like column eat the edges of the frame. |
| 1:1 square | ~6% margin all sides | Less interface, but feeds still crop a little and stack a caption underneath. |
| 16:9 horizontal | ~5% margin all sides | Player controls and the scrubber appear along the bottom on tap. |
| Lower-third graphics | above the bottom 25% | Names and titles drift too low and land under the progress bar. |
Checking text placement frame by frame across three platforms is tedious. CutScore flags every moment your text drifts out of the safe zone, with the timestamp and how far to move it.
Four moves that keep text in frame.
1. Picture the interface that is not there yet
Your editor shows a clean rectangle, but the viewer will see it with a layer of buttons on top. The simplest trick I use: put a semi-transparent overlay in your timeline that marks the right-side button rail and the bottom caption strip, then place text only in the gap. Most editors ship a "title safe" guide you can switch on. If yours does, leave it on permanently. Once you can see where the app will land its interface, you stop placing text in the wrong place by accident.
2. Centre your captions, and lift them off the floor
For burned-in captions, horizontal centre is almost always right, and the safe vertical home is the lower middle, not the very bottom. On vertical video, aim the baseline somewhere around 60 to 70% down the frame, well above the bottom quarter where the progress bar lives. This is also where size and contrast matter, since a caption that survives the crop is no use if it is too small to read. If you are unsure your subtitles are legible at all, the rules in are my captions readable pair directly with placement.
3. Keep titles and lower-thirds off the right rail
On vertical video the right side is a no-go for anything you care about. The like, comment, share and save buttons stack there, and on some apps a profile picture sits at the bottom of that column. If your name graphic or title slides into that strip, half of it disappears behind icons. Pull horizontal text toward the centre-left, and if a graphic genuinely needs the lower band, raise it until it clears the caption block. The frame is taller than your text needs to be, so use the height instead of fighting for the edges.
4. Test on the real app, not your timeline
This is the step that catches everything. Upload the video privately or as a draft, open it on your phone, and look at the actual playback with the real interface on top. You will see in two seconds whether your bottom line is under the progress bar or your title is half-eaten by a button. The desktop preview lies because it has no interface. The phone draft tells the truth. If you publish to several platforms, this also ties into making one video work on every platform, since the safe zone shifts with each layout.
Here is a real CutScore coaching report: on-screen text and captions scored for safe-zone, size and contrast, with the exact timestamps where text strays out of bounds.
If you only fix three things.
Most cut-off text comes down to the same three mistakes. Fix these and the vast majority of your placement problems disappear.
Guides, a draft, or one pass.
Editor safe-zone guides
Free and built in. Most editors have a title-safe and action-safe overlay you can switch on. Good for catching text near the edge. The gap: the guides do not know about TikTok's right rail or the caption block, so they only solve half the problem.
Draft on the real app
The honest test. Upload privately, watch on your phone, see exactly what the interface covers. The cost is time and repetition: you do it once per platform, per video, and you still have to eyeball every line yourself. Reliable, just slow.
A coach in one pass
Hand the file (or a link) to CutScore. It checks every text element against the safe zone for your target platform, plus size and contrast, and returns the timestamps where text risks being cut off. No guides to read. See a sample report.
Frequently asked.
Never lose a line of text again.
CutScore checks every title and caption against the safe zone for your platform and tells you exactly what to move, with the evidence to back it up. Join the waitlist for early access.
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