Text & titles
Add a title, name label, quote, or credit roll, then edit its wording, appearance, placement, and timing. Text styles become editable clips on their own video tracks, so you can keep working on the picture underneath.
Add your first title
- Pause playback. Click the timeline ruler where the title should begin. The playhead marks the insertion time.
- Click Text in the left tool rail.
- Click Simple text. A five-second text clip is added on a new video track above the existing clips, and its properties open on the right.
- In the Text section, replace Content with your wording. Changes appear in the preview as you type. Press Enter inside this box to start another line.
- Choose Typeface, Font size, Weight, Alignment, and Text color as needed.
- Expand Timing to change Start or Length. If the title must last longer than five seconds, also extend Animation length in Animation; see the timing example.
- Move the playhead into the title and press the preview's Play button to check it over your video. Use Save to keep the editable project. Exporting makes the finished video; it does not replace saving the project.
Adding text does not replace the selected clip. Each click on a style adds another copy at the current playhead. Use Undo if you add an unwanted copy. Text is separate from Captions; adding a title does not create or change a subtitle.
Find a style and understand its layers
- Open Text.
- Use Search text styles… to search style names, categories, and descriptions. Clear the search to show the other styles again.
- Open the category selector and choose All styles, Basic, Headings, Lower thirds, Cinematic, Animated, Credits, or My assets.
- Click a style card to add it. A Layers: 2 or Layers: 3 badge means the card adds that many separately editable clips.
The count above the cards reflects both the search and the selected category. If there are no matches, clear the search or return to All styles. An empty My assets category means you have not saved a text style on this device yet.
| Style | Category and layers | Starting appearance and use |
|---|---|---|
| Simple text | Basic · 1 | A white, centered “Your text” title in Arial. A useful starting point for your own style. |
| Title + subtitle | Basic · 2 | A bold main title above a smaller, pale subtitle. Edit the two lines on their separate tracks. |
| Quiet text | Basic · 1 | Small, pale text near the lower part of the picture, with generous surrounding space. |
| Bold statement | Headings · 1 | A large, very heavy, two-line “MAKE / IT HAPPEN” heading. |
| Chapter opener | Headings · 2 | A small gold chapter label and a large, left-aligned heading. Change both layers to name your chapter. |
| Poster title | Headings · 1 | A large, stacked, pale-green title in Impact. |
| Name & role | Lower thirds · 2 | A bold, left-aligned name with a smaller teal role line beneath it. |
| On location | Lower thirds · 2 | A bold location name and a smaller gold coordinates line in Consolas. Both parts are text you can replace. |
| Editorial | Cinematic · 2 | A two-line Georgia title and a small gold byline. |
| Pull quote | Cinematic · 2 | A centered gold Georgia quotation with a separate white attribution. |
| Soft reveal | Animated · 1 | A two-line Georgia title with a 0.9-second fade in and a 0.9-second fade out. |
| End card | Animated · 2 | A heavy “THANK YOU” title and a smaller purple closing line. Their fade-ins are 0.5 and 1.3 seconds; both fade out over 0.7 seconds. |
| Rolling credits | Credits · 1 | A twelve-second upward credit roll with editable headings, names, and blank lines. It has 0.3-second fades at both ends. |
| Credit slate | Credits · 3 | A small “CREATED BY” line, a larger Georgia name, and a small closing copyright line. Replace the example wording, including its year, with your own. |
All styles start with a five-second clip and five-second animation except Rolling credits, which starts at twelve seconds. Placement and type sizes adapt to the project's frame size. The card preview shows the design, including a visible point in an animation; it is not a playback control.
Work with a style that has several layers
- Add the style, then look for its clips on the new video tracks. The first text layer is selected initially.
- Edit that layer's Content. Select the next clip in the timeline to edit its wording and formatting. You can also click a visible, unselected text item in the paused preview.
- For matching appearance times, give the layers the same Start and Length. Move or trim each clip when changing the whole arrangement; the card does not create a linked group.
- Check the preview with all the layers visible. Use the track visibility control if you need to isolate a layer temporarily.
One Undo immediately after adding a style removes all the layers added by that click. Deleting a selected layer later deletes only that clip. The name shown above the properties identifies the layer you are editing.
Edit wording and typography
Select the text clip, then expand Text in the right properties panel. If the panel is too short to show everything, scroll within it. The section headings open and close their controls.
| Control | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Content | The title's actual wording. Use Enter for line breaks and blank lines for extra rows, especially in credits. A long line stays on one line until you insert a break; it does not automatically wrap to Text width. |
| Typeface | The font. The standard choices are Arial, Georgia, Impact, Consolas, Segoe UI, Times New Roman, and Verdana. A different font already used by a selected title can also appear in the list. Choose a font available on the device where you are editing, then check the result. |
| Font size | The letter size in project pixels, from 1 to 2000. A larger number makes the text larger; it does not increase Line height automatically. |
| Weight | The stroke weight of the letters: Regular, 500, 600, Bold, 800, or 900. Regular is 400 and Bold is 700; larger numbers are heavier. The available appearance depends on the chosen font. An existing title's other weight may also remain available. |
| Alignment: Left, Center, Right | How every line aligns inside the text block. Center aligns around the middle of Text width; Right aligns at its right edge. This does not move the block to the center or edge of the canvas. |
| Text color | The letter color. Click the color value to open the palette, choose a swatch or edit Hex color, then click Done. A six-digit value such as #FFFFFF is a color; an optional final two digits set its transparency, such as #FFFFFF80 for partly transparent white. |
| Reset type style | Restores Arial, a frame-relative default font size and line height, Regular weight, Center alignment, and white text. It keeps your wording, text-block position and width, animation settings, and clip timing. |
The color palette contains white, pale gray, dark gray, black, gold, orange, pink, purple, periwinkle, blue, teal, and green swatches. Hex color accepts #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA. For the final transparency pair, 00 is fully transparent and FF is fully opaque. Choosing another swatch keeps an existing transparency pair, so check the full value if a new color still looks faint. An incomplete or invalid color is not applied.
Use the controls with the keyboard
Press Tab to move between fields. In a number field, type a value directly or use its + and − buttons. ↑ and ↓ change it by one step; hold Shift for ten steps. Press Enter to finish editing. Valid values can update immediately; Escape dismisses an unfinished entry but does not undo changes already applied. Use Undo to reverse an applied edit.
Open a typeface or weight list with Enter or Space, move with the arrow keys, and choose with Enter. Escape closes it without choosing another option. In Alignment, click a choice or use the left and right arrow keys while the group has focus. Typing spaces or pressing Enter in Content edits your text instead of starting playback.
Position and resize the text
| Text layout control | Meaning and practical use |
|---|---|
| X position | The left edge of the text block, in project pixels. Increase it to move the block right. Zero is the left of the frame; negative values can place text outside it. |
| Y position | The top of the first line, in project pixels. Increase it to move the text down. Zero is the top of the frame. A credit roll adds its movement to this starting position. |
| Text width | The width used for alignment and the selection box. It is not an automatic line-wrap limit. For example, at X position 192 and Text width 1536, Center alignment places the center of each line at horizontal pixel 960. |
| Line height | The vertical distance between successive lines, in pixels, from 1 to 10000. Increase it for more spacing. Values smaller than the font size can make lines overlap. |
| Center text on canvas | Sets X position to 10% of frame width, Y position to 42% of frame height, Text width to 80% of frame width, and Alignment to Center. This is a useful starting placement, not a calculation based on your wording's exact height. It keeps your font, wording, and animation. |
X and Y position allow values from −100000 to 100000 pixels, and Text width from 0 to 100000. For normal placement, keep the text block within the project's width and height. Increasing the width alone does not enlarge letters.
- Pause and put the playhead inside the text clip so the title is visible.
- Select its timeline clip. Drag inside its outlined selection in the preview to move it.
- Drag the small square resize handle to change Font size, Text width, and Line height together while keeping their proportions.
- For an exact result, expand Text layout and enter the position and size values. Changing these values edits the title; scrolling to zoom the preview only changes your view.
With snapping enabled, dragging can align the text's edges or center to guides, the frame, or a snapping grid. Hold Alt during a drag to bypass snapping. For close work, zoom with the wheel, pan with the middle mouse button or Space plus left drag, and use Fit to restore the view. See Canvas, guides, and preview navigation for those controls.
Set when the title appears and disappears
Timing controls the clip's place on the timeline. Animation controls what happens inside that clip. These values have different jobs; changing one does not automatically match all the others.
| Control | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Timing → Start | The project time, in seconds, at which this text clip begins. Zero puts it at the beginning of the project. |
| Timing → Length | How long the clip occupies the timeline, in seconds; the minimum is 0.2 seconds. A clip starting at 3 with Length 5 ends at project time 8. |
| Timing → Speed | The playback rate, from 0.1× to 8×. At 2×, the title's fades and roll advance twice as quickly, and the selected clip's Length halves to preserve the same part of the animation. Use 1× for the timing examples below. |
| Timing → Source in | How many seconds to skip into the title's animation. Zero starts at its beginning. A nonzero value can skip the fade-in or begin credits partway through their roll. |
| Animation → Fade in | The time taken to increase from transparent to full appearance at the beginning of the animation. Zero removes this fade. |
| Animation → Fade out | The time taken to disappear at the end of Animation length. For an animation length of 8 and Fade out of 1, fading begins at animation second 7. |
| Animation → Animation length | The endpoint of the title's appearance and its fade-out, in animation seconds. The title is invisible after this endpoint even if its timeline clip is longer. |
| Reset fades | Sets Fade in and Fade out to zero. It does not change Animation length, the credit roll, or clip timing. |
Start and Source in accept 0–86400 seconds; Length accepts 0.2–86400. Fade in and Fade out accept 0–86400; Animation length accepts 0.001–86400. Most timing step buttons change by 0.1 seconds. Use sensible fade lengths shorter than the whole animation so there is time to read the title at full strength.
Example: show a title for eight seconds with one-second fades
- Select the text clip. In Timing, set Speed to 1 and Source in to 0.
- Set Start to the desired project time and Length to 8.
- Expand Animation. Set Animation length to 8, Fade in to 1, and Fade out to 1.
- Move the playhead to the start of the clip and play it. The title fades in for one second, stays readable, then fades out during its final second.
- If the style has a subtitle or other text layers, repeat these timing changes on each layer that should appear for the same interval.
Moving a clip changes where the same animation plays. Trimming its beginning or splitting it preserves the later part of its animation rather than automatically replaying the fade-in from zero. See Clip editing for moving, trimming, splitting, and deleting clips.
Split a title into separately editable sections
- Select the title's timeline clip and move the playhead inside it, away from either end.
- Click Split selected clip at the bottom of its properties, or press C or Ctrl+B with focus outside a text field.
- Select either resulting clip to change that section's wording, appearance, or timing. The later section begins at the same point in the animation that it reached before the split.
- Use Undo if you split the wrong title or at the wrong time. Other layers from a multi-layer style are not split together automatically.
Build and time rolling credits
- Move the playhead to where the credits should begin, open Text, choose the Credits category, and click Rolling credits.
- In Content, replace the example headings and names. Put each intended row on its own line. Blank lines create gaps between groups.
- Adjust Font size, Weight, Alignment, Text color, and Line height for readability.
- Expand Animation. Scroll duration sets how long the upward journey takes. A larger value makes the roll slower; a smaller value makes it faster. This control appears for a scrolling title, not for ordinary static text styles.
- Keep Animation length, Scroll duration, and the clip's Length coordinated. For a twenty-second roll starting from its beginning, use Speed 1, Source in 0, Length 20, Animation length 20, and Scroll duration 20.
- Play the entire clip, including its first and last seconds. Confirm that the first heading enters, the final line clears the frame, and the fades do not remove readable text too early.
Rolling credits begin below the frame and travel upward, so they can be absent at the exact beginning of the clip. Seek forward or play before assuming the title is missing. Adding or removing lines, or changing Line height, adjusts the roll's travel to accommodate the text; the duration remains your choice. Recheck the full roll after changing its content or spacing.
The initial twelve-second roll has 0.3-second fades. Scroll duration can be 0.1–86400 seconds. Changing Animation length alone does not slow the roll, and changing Scroll duration alone does not extend the clip. For a stationary closing card, choose Credit slate instead.
Transform the whole clip and adjust its color
Expand Transform or Color below Timing. These settings affect the selected text clip in addition to its text formatting.
| Control | What the value means |
|---|---|
| Scale | A multiplier from 0.1× to 3×; 1× is unchanged. This scales the whole clip around the canvas center and can also change where the text appears. Use Font size or the text resize handle when you want to change the text's own size and layout. |
| Opacity | Overall visibility, from 0 to 1. Zero is invisible; 0.5 is half strength; 1 is full strength before any fade or color transparency. |
| Horizontal offset | An additional sideways shift in pixels. Negative moves left; positive moves right. The allowed distance is half the project width in either direction. |
| Vertical offset | An additional vertical shift in pixels. Negative moves up; positive moves down. The allowed distance is half the project height in either direction. |
| Rotation | Rotation from −180° to 180° around the canvas center. Positive turns clockwise; negative turns counterclockwise. Zero is unrotated. |
| Reset transform | Restores Scale 1, Opacity 1, both offsets 0, and Rotation 0. Text layout values and fades remain as they were. |
| Brightness | 0–2, with 1 unchanged. Lower darkens; higher brightens. Zero makes the text black, which may blend into a black background. |
| Contrast | 0–2, with 1 unchanged. Lower reduces contrast; higher increases it. |
| Saturation | 0–3, with 1 unchanged. Zero removes color; values above 1 strengthen it. It has little effect on white or gray lettering. |
| Reset color | Restores Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation to 1. It does not replace Text color. |
For predictable placement, use Text layout for the text block and leave Transform at its defaults unless you need a whole-clip adjustment. If a title looks faint, check Opacity, the transparency in Text color, and its current fade phase.
Save and reuse a text style
- Select the text layer you want to keep and finish its wording, typography, layout, and animation settings.
- In its properties, find Asset name and enter a recognizable name, such as “Interview name”.
- Click Save as reusable asset. A message confirms that it is available in My assets.
- Open Text and select My assets. Move the playhead to a new insertion time, then click the saved card to add a new, editable copy.
- Edit the new copy as needed. The saved style and existing copies remain independent.
A saved text style keeps the selected layer's wording, font, color, text layout, fades, and any credit roll. It does not save the entire project or a multi-layer template as one group. For Name & role, for example, save the name layer and the role layer separately, then add and time both when reusing them.
The clip's Start, Length, Speed, Source in, Transform settings, and Color adjustments are not part of the saved style. A new copy is inserted at the current playhead with its style's animation length. Set its timing and any whole-clip effects after adding it. In a different frame size, the original design's frame fits proportionally inside the new frame, with any extra space shared on opposite sides. The text keeps its position within that fitted design; check placement when switching between landscape and portrait.
Saving again creates another asset. If the name is already used, a number is added, such as “Interview name (2)”; it does not overwrite the earlier card. An empty name becomes “Title”. Saved styles stay on the current device and browser profile and are available in other projects there. Save the editable project separately, and do not rely on the style library as a backup after clearing browser data or changing devices.
Saving a reusable style is separate from project Undo. Undo can reverse changes to the project or remove a newly inserted copy; it does not remove the saved library card.
Correct mistakes and missing text
- The wrong wording changes: check the layer name at the top of properties, then select the intended timeline clip. A multi-layer style has separate Content fields.
- The title is invisible: put the playhead inside its Start–Length interval, make its video track visible, and check Content, position, Opacity, color transparency, and Animation length. A fade or the beginning of a credit roll can also be temporarily invisible.
- A long sentence runs off the picture: insert line breaks in Content, reduce Font size, or reposition the block. Text width does not wrap the sentence automatically.
- Letters overlap between lines: increase Line height. Increasing Font size does not automatically increase that spacing.
- Only one part of a name card moves or disappears: select and adjust its other layers too. The layers are not a linked group.
- The title disappears before its clip ends: extend Animation length as well as Length, or reduce Source in. Check Speed if the animation is running unexpectedly fast.
- A saved style is missing: clear the search, select Text → My assets, and check that you are using the device and browser profile where it was saved. A saved arrow appears under Elements instead.
Use Undo and Redo in the timeline toolbar to reverse or reapply project edits. After leaving a text field, Ctrl+Z also undoes a project edit; while typing, the field keeps its own text-editing shortcuts. To remove a title, select its clip and click Delete selected clip or press Delete outside a text field. Check the timeline's ripple-delete setting before deleting, because it can also shift later clips. Close clip properties closes the selection's panel without deleting the clip.
Continue with arrows and callouts, timeline and track controls, saving projects, or the keyboard and mouse reference.