arabic-captions

Topics in the source

• Arabic Captions
• 1. Line rules
• 2. Fix RTL punctuation (the #1 bug)
• 3. Burn captions with ffmpeg (correct Arabic shaping)
• 4. Word-by-word highlight captions (Reels style)
• 5. Exports
• 6. QA (always)

Arabic captions break in three classic ways: disconnected letters, punctuation on the wrong side, and reversed mixed Arabic/English. This skill prevents all three. Start from a clean transcript (arabic-transcript-cleanup). Long-form (YouTube): max 2 lines, 35–42 characters per line, 1–6 s per caption. Short-form (Reels/TikTok): 2–4 words per caption, one line, changing with speech. Break at meaning boundaries. Never split: a number from its unit («٣ ثواني»), «ال» from its word, or a negation from its verb («مش هـ…»). Captions follow the speaker's dialect. Don't "correct" it to فصحى. Digits: follow the Voice Card (Western 0–9 is the safer default for burned-in text). When a line starts or ends with punctuation or English, many players put the «؟» or «.» on the wrong side. Fix it by adding the invisible Right-to-Left Mark (U+200F) at the start and end of every Arabic line: For lines that mix in English («جربت Claude Code امبارح»), RLM at both ends is usually enough for players and editors. If one still reverses it, wrap the English part in LRI…PDI (⁦Claude Code⁩). For burning in with ffmpeg, RLM is not enough on its own; see Encoding=-1 in section 3. Use Arabic punctuation: «؟» «،» «

This is an excerpt. Refer to the complete source and its current requirements.