Captions workflow in Final Cut Pro for Mac

You can add captions to your projects to create subtitles, closed captions, and burned-in captions. Special caption roles make it easy to deliver captions in multiple languages. You can use Transcribe to Captions to create captions automatically, or you can create them manually.

The viewer showing a video image with a superimposed caption

Step 1: Choose a caption format

If you create captions manually, first choose whether to create CEA-608, iTT, or SRT captions. The format you choose depends on the intended use of your project and the target audience. Broadcasters, streaming services, and government regulators each have their own delivery specifications.

If you create captions automatically with Transcribe to Captions, Final Cut Pro generates captions in the iTT format. To convert the captions to a different format, see Convert captions to another format in Final Cut Pro for Mac.

Step 2: Create a caption role

Create a caption role for the chosen format and a subrole for each language version.

If you use Transcribe to Captions, Final Cut Pro creates a caption role and an English language subrole automatically.

Step 3: Create or import captions

Create captions automatically or manually, or import an initial set of captions in one language.

Step 4: Edit caption text

Edit caption text directly in the timeline using the caption editor, or make text changes in the inspector.

Step 5: Adjust and arrange captions

Use the powerful editing tools in Final Cut Pro to adjust the timing and arrangement of captions in your projects. You can connect captions to specific frames in a clip and set the duration of each caption.

Step 6: Format caption text

To determine how your captions look onscreen, you can format caption text in the inspector. The CEA-608 and iTT caption standards each have their own specifications for text formats, placement, color, transitions, number of lines, and number of characters. The SRT format has relatively few formal specifications. You can format SRT captions in Final Cut Pro, but you have the option to remove all formatting during export to make them universally compatible with players and devices.

Step 7: Create captions in additional languages

After you finalize an initial set of captions in one language, you can create captions in additional languages by duplicating the first set of captions. You can enter translated text in the caption editor or the inspector, or you can import captions in other languages into new language roles.

At this stage, you can also convert captions to another format.

Step 8: Export captions

You can export captions with your final output media file, either as a separate file or embedded directly in the video file.

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