How to burn in captions in Premiere Pro

Open the export dialog, click the Captions tab, set Export Options to Burn Captions Into Video, and export. The text becomes part of the picture and shows everywhere, on every player, with no CC button involved.

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When to burn in

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn, and any platform that doesn't accept caption files. Also whenever you styled the captions and want that exact look preserved.

When not to

Broadcast delivery, or YouTube long-form where viewers may want captions off or translated. Use a sidecar file or closed captions there.

Quality

Burned-in text is compressed with the video. Small text with thin strokes turns muddy at low bitrates. Use bold fonts, sizes above 55 px on vertical video, and a bitrate of at least 10 Mbps for 1080p vertical exports.

Export format

H.264 in an MP4 container is what every social platform expects, and burn-in works with it. If you export ProRes or another mezzanine format for a colorist, burn-in still works, but consider leaving captions off that master and burning them into the delivery file instead, so the master stays clean.

Checking before you post

Scrub the exported file at a few points. If captions are missing entirely, the Captions tab was on None; re-export.

Animated captions and burn-in

Caption graphics made by a plugin are video layers, not captions, so they are always in the picture regardless of the Captions tab. No setting to remember.