How to add captions in Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro has had captions built in since 2021, and for a plain subtitle track it works well. You don't need a plugin or a template pack, and you don't need to leave the app. This is the whole workflow, including the styling limit you'll hit and what to do about it.

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Step 1: transcribe your sequence

Open Window > Text, switch to the Transcript tab, and click Transcribe sequence. Premiere's speech to text runs on your machine and usually finishes in less time than the clip is long. Pick the spoken language or leave it on auto detect. If your dialogue sits on its own audio track, point the transcription at that track; it saves cleanup later.

Step 2: create captions from the transcript

In the same panel, click Create captions. Three settings in that dialog matter. Format should be Subtitle for normal on-screen captions (closed captions are covered below). Max characters per line defaults to 42, which reads like TV subtitles; for the short-form look with 3 to 5 words per caption, drop it to somewhere between 16 and 20. Lines can be single or double, and short-form is almost always single.

Premiere then adds a caption track above your video with every caption timed to the transcript. If it misheard a word, double-click the caption text and fix it. The timing stays where it was.

Step 3: style the track

Select a caption and open Window > Essential Graphics. Set the font, size, color, outline and background box once, then save the result as a Track Style so every caption on the track follows it.

This is also where native captions stop: one style for the whole track. There is no per-word color, no pop-in, and no karaoke highlight. Every caption looks the same as the one before it.

Step 4: export

In the export dialog, open the Captions tab. Burn captions into video turns the text into pixels, which is what you want for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Create sidecar file writes a separate .srt instead, which is what you want for YouTube's own caption system or a client hand-off.

What about closed captions?

If a broadcaster or platform asked you for closed captions (CEA-608 or 708), choose that format instead of Subtitle in step 2. Closed captions travel in a data stream the viewer can switch on and off, and their styling is restricted on purpose, so don't fight it. For social video, burned-in subtitles are the norm.

The short version

Transcribe sequence, Create captions, set 16 to 20 characters per line for short-form, style the track once, burn in on export. It takes about ten minutes the first time and a couple of minutes once you've done it twice.