How to add captions in Premiere Pro, automatically or from an SRT file
In Premiere Pro, transcribe the sequence in the Text panel with Speech to Text, then choose Create captions from transcript: Adobe's steps are below, read on its help pages on 8 November 2026. Two free routes sit beside them. Make an SRT in your browser with Burncaps and import it, for a language Premiere's Speech to Text does not list. Or export the edit and let Burncaps burn animated word-by-word captions into it. The video is never uploaded to us.
The video never leaves your browser. On a computer, the sound is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service; on a phone, it goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone. The service gets short pieces of sound, never the picture.
- Video never uploaded
- Free, no sign-up
- SRT for Premiere, or burned in
Live preview, rendered on this page by the same engine that burns your video.
Premiere Pro's own captions, step by step
These steps are from Adobe's help pages, read on 8 November 2026. Adobe's own pages call the app Adobe Premiere (its older Premiere Pro help addresses now redirect there); this page means the same desktop app. The menu names are Adobe's to change, and the pages show no version number, so check them against your copy.
Make the captions
- Switch to the captions workspace. Window, Workspaces, Captions and Graphics. It puts the Text panel beside the Program Monitor, the Properties panel and the timeline.
- Transcribe the sequence. Open the Text panel (Window, Text) and, on its Transcript tab, start a transcript. Choose the language spoken (Premiere may ask to download its language pack), whether to label speakers and which audio to transcribe, then select Transcribe. Media imported with Automatic Transcription ticked is transcribed as it comes in.
- Create the captions. On the Captions tab, choose Create captions from transcript. Pick a caption preset (Subtitle default suits most videos), a format, a style, the length, duration and gap of each caption, and one line or two, then select Create captions. They land on their own caption track, aligned with the speech.
- One word at a time, if you want it. In the same dialog, expand Captioning Preferences and choose Single Word under Layout: each caption then holds one word, in sync with the speech.
- Style them. Select the caption text in the timeline and use the Properties panel: fill, stroke, shadow, alignment. Save the look from the Track style menu with Create style, to the project or to your local styles.
- Export. Adobe's captions overview says captions export burned into the picture as styled subtitles, or as an SRT file beside the video, and can be embedded in the file; its formats page names MOV and MXF for that. From the Text panel's Captions tab, the menu's Export also writes the captions as an SRT, a text or a CSV file.
| What | What Adobe's pages say |
|---|---|
| Cost | Speech to Text is included in a Premiere subscription, with currently no set limit for fair and reasonable use by individual subscribers on their own projects. adobe.com listed the Premiere Single App plan at US$22.99 a month, on an annual plan billed monthly |
| Offline | From Premiere 22.2, once a language pack is installed; the English pack comes with the app |
| Languages heard | 18 on Adobe's Speech to Text list (below) |
| Caption files it imports | SCC, MCC, XML, STL and SRT as sidecar files, and W3C TTML (also called DFXP), SMPTE-TT and EBU-TT as XML; it also embeds captions into, and reads them from, MOV and MXF files |
| Translation | A Translate Captions button on the Captions tab, for captions already made |
Sources, read on 8 November 2026
Adobe Help Center: Captions overview (updated 7 January 2026), Auto transcribe video using Speech to Text (2 June 2026), Create captions (7 January 2026), Create single word captions (18 August 2026), Create styles for captions (7 January 2026), Languages supported by Speech-to-Text (22 August 2025), Supported file formats for captions (7 January 2026), Import caption file from third-party service (7 January 2026) and Export selected captions (22 August 2025); and Adobe's product page Transcribe video to text with AI, with its plan prices as shown that day. Prices differ by country.
Speech to Text languages, and the rest
Adobe lists 18 languages for Speech to Text, the same 18 on its help page and its product page: English, English (UK), Simplified Chinese (Mandarin), Traditional Chinese (Mandarin), Traditional Cantonese, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Italian, Russian, Hindi, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.
Recorded in another language?
Burncaps' editor lists 59 spoken languages. These 44 of them are not on Adobe's Speech to Text list: Afrikaans, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, Estonian, Finnish, Galician, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Kannada, Kazakh, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Persian, Polish, Punjabi, Romanian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Swahili, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu and Vietnamese. For any of them, make the SRT in Burncaps from the exported edit and import it into Premiere, as below. Twelve Indian languages are heard on your own device; how well each language is heard differs, and the Indian language study gives our measured numbers.
Make the SRT free, then import it into Premiere Pro
In Premiere Pro
- Export the finished edit as a video file, an MP4 or a MOV. Adobe's help gives the export settings for your version.
In Burncaps, in your browser
- Drop the file on this page. Burncaps hears it and writes every word as a script under the player.
- Click any word to correct it, and one click changes it everywhere it was heard. Type names, brands and jargon in Names to spell right and our AI spells them right in the script (only the text goes).
- Press SRT. Each subtitle is timed to the voice, up to two lines of 42 characters, and never runs across a sentence.
Back in Premiere Pro
- Import the SRT into your project like any piece of media.
- Drag it from the Project panel into the sequence. Premiere creates a new caption track with the captions on it.
- Edit and style them in the Text panel and the Properties panel, as with captions Premiere made itself.
These three steps are Adobe's, from its page on importing a caption file from a third-party service. We have not tested the import in Premiere ourselves.
Make the SRT from the finished edit
An SRT made from the exported edit follows your cut. One made from a raw clip follows only that clip, and its lines land at the wrong moments once the clip is trimmed. Adobe's list of caption files names SRT but not VTT, so press SRT, not VTT, for Premiere.
Or burn animated captions in with Burncaps
Export from Premiere
An MP4 or MOV of the finished edit, up to ten minutes. It opens in this page and is never uploaded to us, which you can check in your browser's network tab while it works.
Pick a style
Animated word-by-word captions in 60 styles, each word timed to the voice. Change the font, the colours, the size and where they sit, then check every word in the script.
Export the MP4
The captions are drawn into the picture of a new MP4. On a computer the whole video keeps its own resolution, and an AAC sound track, the usual kind in an MP4, is copied as it was.
| What matters | Premiere Pro's own captions | An SRT from Burncaps, imported | Captions burned in by Burncaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you need | A Premiere subscription | A copy of Premiere that imports SRT files | Any video file Premiere exports |
| Languages heard | 18 on Adobe's list | 59 in the editor | 59 in the editor |
| Where the words are made | In Premiere, which works offline once the language pack is installed | In your browser, or on our speech service: on a phone unless you switch it off, on a computer only if you choose it | The same as the SRT |
| Fixing a word | In the Text panel | Click a word in the script; one click fixes every other place it was heard | The same, before you export |
| The look | Premiere's caption styles, one line, two lines or a single word | Styled in Premiere | Animated word by word, in 60 styles |
| Length | Your timeline | Up to three hours; up to ten minutes free without limit | Up to ten minutes |
Where the words go
The video stays in your browser. On a computer, English is heard on your own device unless you choose our speech service, which is also offered for other languages and for recordings over ten minutes; on a phone the sound goes to our speech service unless you keep it on the phone. The service gets short pieces of sound, never the picture, and passes them to Microsoft's speech recognition in the EU, which by Microsoft's terms for the service stores none of it. The script's text leaves your device only if you type names to spell right, choose a translation, choose Clips or add B-roll to a clip (it then goes to our AI); ticking Keep everything on this device stops that.
Shorts from the same edit
Drop the long version of your edit and choose Clips: Burncaps finds the moments worth posting and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips, each with ums and dead air removed. Every clip of the whole recording is found and shown, free and with no sign-up; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and the 7-day trial and Pro export every clip, unlimited.
What it costs
Free: 2 videos every 30 days, each with captions and up to 3 clips, no watermark, no sign-up. Then try Pro free for 7 days, no card. Pro is $29 a month for unlimited clips and captions; Starter is $9.98 a month or $49 once.
Up to ten minutes, a recording's text and subtitle files are free, as often as you like. A longer one, up to three hours and 10 GB, gives its first ten minutes free, and all of it as one of your free videos (2 every 30 days), in the 7-day Pro trial (free, no card) or on a paid plan.
Questions, answered plainly
How do I add captions in Premiere Pro?
Adobe's help gives these steps: switch to the Captions and Graphics workspace, open the Text panel and transcribe the sequence with Speech to Text, then on the Captions tab choose Create captions from transcript, pick a preset, format, style and line settings, and select Create captions. The captions land on their own caption track in the timeline, where you edit and style them.
Does Premiere Pro have auto captions?
Yes. Speech to Text transcribes the sequence and Create captions from transcript turns the transcript into a caption track. Adobe's product page, read on 8 November 2026, says Speech to Text is included in a Premiere subscription and works offline once a language pack is installed, from Premiere 22.2.
How do I import an SRT file into Premiere Pro?
Adobe's help says to import the SRT into your project like any piece of media, then drag it from the Project panel into the sequence; Premiere creates a new caption track with the captions on it, which you can edit in the Text panel. Adobe's list of caption files names SRT, SCC, MCC, STL and XML files such as TTML, but not VTT, so bring an SRT.
Can Premiere Pro show captions one word at a time?
Yes. Adobe's help page on single word captions, updated 18 August 2026, says to expand Captioning Preferences in the Create Captions dialog and choose Single Word under Layout; each caption then holds one word, in sync with the speech. Burncaps' styles work differently: every word animates as it is said, burned into the picture.
Which languages does Premiere Pro's Speech to Text support?
Adobe lists 18: English, English (UK), Simplified Chinese (Mandarin), Traditional Chinese (Mandarin), Traditional Cantonese, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Italian, Russian, Hindi, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. For a recording in another language, such as Polish, Arabic, Tamil or Ukrainian, make the SRT in Burncaps and import it into Premiere.
Is Burncaps a Premiere Pro plug-in?
No. Burncaps is a separate tool that runs in your browser, and it is not made by or connected with Adobe. You move the files yourself: a video out of Premiere, and an SRT file or a captioned MP4 back in.
Burncaps facts, checked 8 November 2026
What it is: a browser tool that burns animated word-by-word captions into a talking video, or finds the best moments of a talk, podcast or interview and gives them back as ranked, captioned 9:16 clips.
Price: free for 2 videos every 30 days, each one recording with its captioned video and up to 3 clips, no mark and no sign-up; then the free 7-day Pro trial, no card (your email only); then Pro, $29 a month, gives unlimited clips and captioned videos, or Starter, $9.98 a month or $49 once, gives unlimited captioned videos. Starter paid once is not a subscription.
Privacy: the video never leaves your browser. The sound goes only to our speech service, on a phone unless you switch it off, on a computer only if you choose it. Because the video never reaches us, we cannot keep it or train AI on it, and we train no AI on anything you make.
Files: MP4 or MOV in, MP4 out. Captions on the whole video: up to ten minutes. Clips: up to three hours, on a phone or a computer. SRT, VTT, ASS and text files are free without limit for recordings up to ten minutes; a longer recording, up to three hours, gives its script and those files (the first ten minutes free, all of it as one of your free videos, in the trial or with Pro or Starter) and its clips (every one found and shown before you sign up; up to 3 from each free video exported free, every one in the trial or with Pro).
Clips: about one clip for every two minutes of talk, up to 30, ranked, the ones we would post first circled, each showing the words it opens and ends on and the reason it was chosen; each cut to 9:16 with ums and dead air removed, an opening card and captions, framed on whoever is talking. Every clip of the whole recording is found and shown, free and with no sign-up; each free video exports up to 3 of them, and the 7-day trial and Pro export every clip, unlimited.
Languages and styles: captions in the language spoken, twelve Indian languages heard on your device, translation into 59 languages, 60 caption styles.
After it listens: correct any word (one click changes it everywhere), add or cut words, one to six words at a time, position, size, text and highlight colours, and names this browser remembers, all free and without listening again.
Made by: Jordan Labs Ltd, UK company no. 17358646.
Against other tools: sixteen caption tools compared, from the vendors' own pages.