Why put text on a video
Most videos on social networks are watched with the sound off, and a few words on screen tell viewers what is going on. Text is also the quickest way to add a title to a vlog, label the steps of a tutorial, point out a price or a date in a promo clip, credit the person speaking, or write the top and bottom lines of a meme.
Seven styles to start from
Each new text can begin from a ready style, and everything can be changed afterwards:
- Classic – bold white text with a thin black outline and a shadow.
- Meme – yellow Impact letters with a thick black outline.
- Subtitle – white text on a dark rounded box, readable on any background.
- Label – dark text on a white pill, for names, prices or places.
- Title – a bold serif heading with a deep shadow.
- Neon – letters with a pink glow.
- Code – a monospaced font on a purple box, handy for tech tutorials.
All the text settings
| Group | Settings |
|---|---|
| Font | Inter Tight, Fraunces, JetBrains Mono, Impact, Arial, Verdana, Georgia, Times New Roman, Courier New, Comic Sans, a handwriting font and your system font; bold and italic |
| Size and colour | Text size, colour, alignment left, centre or right |
| Outline and shadow | Outline width and colour, shadow strength and colour |
| Background box | Box opacity, colour, padding and rounded corners |
| Spacing | Line height and letter spacing |
| Placement | Nine position presets, size, rotation and opacity, or drag on the player |
| Timing | Start and end, Start here and End here at the playhead, whole video, fade in and fade out |
Text in Chinese, Japanese and Korean is drawn with suitable fonts, and emoji show in colour, so you can write in any language you use.
Several texts on one video
Press Add text again for every new line. Each text is a separate layer with its own style and its own bar on the lane under the film strip, so a title can show for the first three seconds, a label can appear in the middle and a call to action can close the video. Select a text in the Layers list or click it in the player to edit it, and use Duplicate to copy a styled text with all its settings.
Tips for readable text
- White or yellow text with a dark outline is readable on almost any picture.
- On bright, busy backgrounds a semi-transparent box behind the text works better than an outline.
- Large text is easier to read on phones. If you need small text, keep it short.
- Keep a margin from the edges, especially in 9:16 videos, where apps place buttons on the right and captions at the bottom.
- A short fade in and fade out looks calmer than text that pops on and off.
Export
The text is burnt into the picture, so it shows the same way on every device and platform. You can export MP4, WebM, MOV, MKV, GIF or an older format, and the quality presets keep the video close to the original. Everything runs in your browser without uploading your file and without a watermark.
If you want the text to move, try Animated text. For full speech, Add subtitles creates the lines automatically, and ready meme layouts are in the video meme maker.