Adding subtitles to the video ensures that the viewers can get additional information by reading the text at the bottom of the screen. From the perspective of psychology, the video viewers do not read subtitles consciously in most cases, they do it unconsciously. If you have recorded some videos and want to get good views on YouTube and other social media networks, you are suggested to add subtitles to the video, because that will bring more benefits than you ever expected.
In the following post, we’ll briefly list some reasons why people need text information when watching videos, so you will know why adding subtitles are so important. After that, we will expand on how to use the free Windows video editor MiniTool MovieMaker and online tools to add subtitles to the video, so when you could follow the tutorials step by step and try the methods when you edit a video someday.
A Few Interesting Facts You Might Not Have Noticed Before
- A majority of people prefer to turn captions on when watching videos, movies, and TV shows, even if the audio is clear and loud enough.
- If you translate your video captions into the most spoken languages, a larger amount of people can understand your video content easier. Subtitles are proven to be helpful for foreign language learners to enhance listening comprehension.
- Sometimes when people can’t turn on audio when using their portable devices in public places, they could read the captions and understand the video content.
- There are over 350 million people in the world who use hearing aids, and the number is growing year by year. With video captions, they will comprehend your videos and movies in an easier way.
Method One – How to Use Free Software to Add Subtitles to Video on the Computer?
Do a little search on the internet, and you could find quite a long list of software that can add captions (or subtitles) to the video clips. You may have heard that VLC, and the Windows built-in tool Windows Movie Maker is capable of adding subtitles to the videos. Nevertheless, the latter one is no longer available for download. We need to point out that many users complain that Windows Movie Maker is not working normally.
Editing video can be a pleasure or a daunting task for video producers, that much depends on the type of the video content, the level of video editing experience of the users and what video tool they are using.
Most professionals use premium video editing software that require high-end PCs. However, if you want to easily edit video and without spending a fortune because you do not edit videos too often, the free entry-level video editing programs can help you.
MiniTool Software company has been dedicated to providing reliable, professional disk management, data recovery solutions, data backup utilities to tens of millions of users for over 10 years. Trusted by industry experts, MiniTool software products have got featured by many technology sites such as TechRadar, PCMag, CNET, PCWorld, WindowsReport, Softonic, etc.
In recently years, they have added video editing tools and video converter programs to their product line. In the following part, we will show you how to use this powerful free Movie Maker alternative, MiniTool MovieMaker to add text to your videos step by step.
How to Quickly Add Subtitles to the Video with MiniTool MovieMaker on Windows?
MiniTool MovieMaker is a user-friendly, full-featured video editing tool for novice users and semi-pros to add subtitles to video in an effortless manner, besides, doing other basic video edits is simple.
Step 1. Import some video files from your PC/tablet.
- Download and install MiniTool MovieMaker on your Windows PC (you could install it on Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7 computer.)
- Launch this free add subtitles to this video editing program, after that, hit on the Import Media Files option to add your video files. Then, please drag these imported files to the timeline at the bottom of the software.
You could import videos of different resolutions and formats into the software including .mkv, .rmvb, .mov, .avi, .flv, .mp4, .mpg, .vob, and .wmv videos.
Step 2. Add subtitles to the video and then customize them if you want
Now you should click the Text option on the toolbar (please see the picture above). You can find there are a variety of text fronts, including title, caption and end credits to choose from. (For instance, if you want to add a title to a video, simply drag a suitable title mode to the timeline and and drop, after that, enter some words.)
To add subtitles to video free, you are supposed to choose one proper caption mode, and then drag it to your video on the timeline. Now is the time to type some words.
To make the video content eye-catching, you are free to change the sizes, colors, fonts, outlines, and alignments of your subtitles.
Step 3. Now you could export the video with subtitles
Check if the video looks good in the playback window at the upper right corner. Finally, please click “Export” to save your video file in any format and size you need. You could save the final file as .mkv, .ts, .wmv, .mp4, .avi, .mov, .f4v, .3gp, .mpeg2, .webm etc.
Not only can this add subtitles to video software add text (and captions） to your video, but also it also be used to create great videos with some pictures and video footage.
Also read: The Best Free Slideshow Maker – MiniTool MovieMaker to find out how to use this Windows video editing freeware to produce musical slideshows and movies.
If you want to edit some of your YouTube videos, but do not want to install any addition programs on your computer, the following method would be helpful for you.
Method Two. How to Add Some Subtitles to YouTube Video Online?
Here we’ll introduce 2 methods for you to add the text to YouTube videos, you could choose one method and have a try.
Option 1. How to Use YouTube Tool to Add Subtitles (Step-by-Step Guide)
①. Log in to your YouTube account, and then click Creator Studio → Video Manager → and click Videos.
②. Select one of your videos from your YouTube channel, click the drop-down menu that is near to the Edit button, and choose the Subtitles/CC option, after doing so, click the Add new subtitles or CC option.
④. Enter a subtitle, drag it to change its starting point, and then adjust the length of the subtitle to make sure it fits the video best.
⑤. Check the video content to ensure that everything looks good, finally, you could press the Publish button, a few moments later, you will see your subtitles have been uploaded to the video.
Option 2. Upload Subtitles for Adding them to one YouTube Video
Step 1. You need to create an SRT file
The content in that file is going to be used as your video subtitles later.
- Open a text editor on your computer (If you do not have professional text editors, you can use Notepad to try).
- Please create your subtitles in the required format: subtitle number, timestamp, and text; do make sure that each will occupy one line. For example:
0
00:00:06.00–> 00:00:11.50
This is my first time to go to cinema after I moved to Los Angeles.
1
00:07:15.00 –> 00:10:25.00
We had a great stay at Vancouver, Canada in this winter.
Step 2. Save the finally edited subtitles to your computer.
Before saving the subtitles, please check everything looks good in the content, then you could click File, select Save As to store the subtitle file → enter a filename ending with “.srt”. From the drop-menu of Save As Type, please select “All Files”, in this step, click the Encoding menu and select UTF-8.
Step 3. Now you can add subtitles to a video on the YouTube website
In this step, please log in your YouTube account at first, select My Channel, and click Video Manager.
- Select your target video file, click Edit drop-down arrow, when it is done, select Subtitles and CC.
- Now Click Add new subtitles or CC → select Upload a File to choose Subtitle File on your PC or tablet.
- Browse for the file you created just now (in step 2), select Upload.
- Adjust the subtitles (optional step). Now everything is done, you could publish your video with subtitles right away.
If you do not have much time to add subtitles (captions) to a video, the user-friendly free video editor MiniTool MovieMaker is a good choice for you to get a quick result. This Windows program does not have a steep learning curve, either does it require much technical knowledge or video editing experience. For video editing enthusiasts, MiniTool MovieMaker offers many basic and useful video editing functions, like adding subtitles, trimming, splitting, add music, change video color, apply video transitions, remove audio track, turn images to a video, and more. Featuring a simplistic and intuitive user interface, this easy-to-use, free video editing software will meet your needs to quickly craft videos with only a little time and effort.
