If you want to change the appearance of subtitles and closed captioning on Netflix—perhaps to switch font sizes or to add a shadow to make it more readable—you’ll have to access your account on a browser. The process is more complicated than it needs to be if you’re primarily broadcasting on TV. Indeed, for all these years I have never changed what it seems to me, even if I once wanted to. Now, according to TechcrunchThe streaming giant is finally rolling out the ability to customize subtitle text and closed captioning within the TV app itself.
Based on the post’s report, the feature looks and works similar to the Amazon Prime Video TV app’s subtitle modifier. It lets you choose between small, medium, and large text, as well as between four styles with and without drop shadows. One option is yellow text on a black background for more contrast if you need it. On the service’s updated help page, it said you can access these controls by going to Settings at the bottom of the screen while playing a show and then choosing Subtitle Size and Style. Note that text appearance cannot be changed for Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Romanian, Thai, and Traditional Chinese at this time.
More and more people are using subtitles in recent years to hear dialogue when the voices are unbalanced and voices seem to be lower in volume than the background, or to watch performances in a foreign language. It’s not just hearing-impaired viewers who use them anymore. And while the controls in the TV app offer fewer customization options than the Netflix website, they do make changing the appearance of subtitles much easier.
