Add subtitles to video, styled and burned in
You have a clip ready for Reels, a course or a client, and it needs captions that people can actually read on a phone. Send it to your todo.is agent with your own SRT file or none at all. It transcribes if needed, styles the text the way you describe and burns it into a new MP4, or adds a track you can switch off.
The prompt
- Add subtitles to the attached video [ATTACH THE VIDEO]. Subtitle text: [SUBTITLE SOURCE]. Style: [CAPTION STYLE]. Place them [POSITION], and keep them clear of faces and of any text already on screen. Show at most 2 short lines at a time, timed to the speech. Then give me [OUTPUT TYPE]. Before the final render, send me a still frame with the captions so I can approve the look.
What to change
- [ATTACH THE VIDEO]: Attach the MP4 or MOV (up to 50 MB per upload). Compress it first if it is bigger.
- [SUBTITLE SOURCE]: E.g. "transcribe the English speech", "use the attached SRT file" or "translate the Spanish speech into English".
- [CAPTION STYLE]: E.g. "bold white text with a black outline, one word highlighted in yellow", "plain white on a semi-transparent box" or "match our brand font Inter".
- [POSITION]: E.g. "in the lower third", "in the middle, Reels style" or "above the bottom 250 pixels so app buttons don't cover them".
- [OUTPUT TYPE]: E.g. "an MP4 with burned-in captions", "an MP4 with a soft subtitle track plus the SRT" or "both".
Example result
- Caption report: Studio_tour.mp4
- Length 0:58 · 1080x1920 · speech in English
- What your agent did
- • Transcribed the speech and fixed names: Marisol, Kiln Room, Thursday workshops
- • Split it into 24 captions, max 2 lines and about 32 characters per line for a vertical screen
- • Each caption stays on screen 1 to 4 seconds, starting a frame before the words
- • Burned them in with bold white text, a 3 px black outline and a soft shadow
- • Kept them 280 px above the bottom edge, where Reels and TikTok buttons sit
- Sample captions
- • 0:00.4 → 0:02.1 Welcome to the studio.
- • 0:02.1 → 0:04.8 This is where every mug / starts as a lump of clay.
- • 0:11.2 → 0:13.6 The Kiln Room gets / to 1,240 degrees.
- • 0:51.0 → 0:54.3 Thursday workshops, / link in bio.
- Files
- • Studio_tour_captioned.mp4 with the captions burned in, same 1080x1920 quality
- • Studio_tour.srt to upload as a separate caption track on YouTube or LinkedIn
- Burned-in or soft subtitles?
- • Burned-in (open captions): always visible, look the same everywhere. Best for Reels, TikTok and ads, since most people scroll with sound off
- • Soft (closed captions): a separate track viewers can switch off or change language. Best for YouTube, courses and accessibility rules
- Easy changes
- • "Make the font 20% bigger"
- • "Highlight each word as it's spoken"
- • "Add a Spanish version as a second track"
How to do it with todo.is
- Copy the prompt and fill in the brackets: where the text comes from, the style and the output.
- Attach the video in todo.is on the Today screen, or send it to your agent on WhatsApp or Telegram.
- Approve the sample frame your agent sends, or ask for a different font, size or position.
- Download the captioned MP4 and the SRT. Reply "move the captions up" or "fix the word at 0:32" for quick fixes.
Tips for a better result
- For vertical videos, keep lines short (around 30 characters) so the text doesn't cover half the screen.
- Leave space at the bottom and right side of Reels and TikTok videos: likes, comments and the caption bar sit there.
- Give your agent tricky names and product terms up front. Speech recognition guesses on unusual words.
- Keep the SRT even when you burn in captions. You can reuse it on YouTube or translate it later.
- Proofread the first 10 seconds carefully. Errors at the start are the ones most viewers notice.
add subtitles to video: FAQ
- How do I add subtitles to a video permanently? Burn them in. The text becomes part of the picture, so it shows on every app and player, but it can't be switched off afterwards.
- Can I add my own SRT file to a video? Yes. Attach the video and the SRT, and your agent either burns it in or adds it as a soft track. If the timing is off, it can shift all captions by the amount you say.
- Can it add subtitles in another language? Yes. Your agent transcribes the speech, translates the captions and burns in or attaches the translated version. Have a native speaker check anything important.
- Does burning in subtitles lower the video quality? The video has to be re-encoded, but your agent keeps the original resolution and a high quality setting, so the difference is hard to see.
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