Fix caption timing in Premiere Pro

Captions in Premiere Pro are clips on a caption track, so you fix timing the way you fix any clip: drag edges to retime, drag the whole thing to shift, and use the razor to split. For a constant offset, select all and move them together.

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Everything is off by the same amount

Click the first caption, shift-click the last, and drag. Hold the playhead on a word you can hear and line the caption up to it. Imported .srt files cause this most often.

Captions drift over time

A drift that grows means the captions were made for a different cut. If you trimmed the video after transcribing, the captions after the cut are all late by the length you removed. Re-transcribe after locking the edit, or select everything after the cut and shift it.

Two captions overlap

Trim the first caption's out point to the second's in point. Overlapping captions flicker or fail to render in some players.

A caption is too long or too short

Split it with the razor at the natural pause, or select two and choose Merge Captions from the right-click menu. Aim for captions of one to three seconds.

Word-level timing

Native captions store timing per line only. If you need timing per word, for highlighted captions, that comes from a plugin's transcription rather than the caption track.