How to add subtitles in Premiere Pro

How to add subtitles in Premiere Pro

In Premiere Pro, open the Text panel (Window > Text), switch to the Captions tab, and use Import captions from file to load an .srt. Premiere creates a captions track above your video, and the cues line up to the timestamps already in the file.

That means the work is not in Premiere, it is in getting an accurate SRT in the first place. SnailText generates one from the audio of your footage on your own machine, with no upload and no per-minute billing, and writes the .srt next to the file.

Import an SRT into Premiere Pro, step by step

Before you start: Generate the SRT. In SnailText, open Transcribe files, add your footage, set the output to SRT before running, and run it. Transcribe the exported cut rather than the camera rushes - then the cue times already match your sequence and nothing needs shifting afterwards.

1. In Premiere, open the Text panel with Window > Text and select the Captions tab.
2. Click Import captions from file, pick the .srt, and the New Caption Track dialog opens. Choose the caption standard and check the frame rate matches your sequence. Subtitle is the usual choice and the one that gives you full styling control in Essential Graphics; CEA-708 is for broadcast delivery where captions stay toggleable, and it restricts the styling you can apply.
3. Premiere adds a captions track above your video track. Drag it so it starts where the dialogue starts if your sequence has a leader or countdown, since the SRT timestamps are relative to the start of the file you transcribed.
4. Restyle in the Essential Graphics panel: font, size, position and background box apply to all cues at once via Track Style.
5. To burn the captions into the picture, open File > Export > Media and set Captions to Burn Captions Into Video. To keep them as a separate sidecar instead, choose Create Sidecar File.

Menu paths written against Adobe's Premiere Pro captions documentation (checked 2026-10-01). Premiere Pro is Mac and Windows.

Why the cues land correctly

SnailText wraps subtitle lines at 42 characters and splits any cue longer than 6 seconds. Those two limits are what decide whether an imported SRT reads on a timeline: a 20-second cue holding 200 characters is perfectly legal in the format and unusable on screen, and Premiere will display exactly what the file tells it to.

The 42-character line is the limit Netflix sets in its timed-text style guide. The 6-second cue is our own choice, a little tighter than the 7 seconds Netflix allows. Between them the file arrives already shaped for an edit instead of as blocks you split by hand.

Timestamps are phrase-level: one cue per spoken phrase, which is how subtitles are normally cut. They are not word-level, so Premiere cannot drive per-word highlighting from this file.

One thing to watch: the timestamps are relative to the start of the file you transcribed. If you transcribe the full camera file but your sequence starts 8 seconds in, the captions track needs moving by that offset. Transcribing your exported cut rather than the source rushes avoids the arithmetic entirely.

What importing an SRT into Premiere Pro will not do

• It will not give you word-by-word pop-on captions. Those need per-word timing, and SnailText produces phrase-level cues, so the animated single-word style you see on social edits is not something this file can drive. Premiere can animate the cues it has, but it cannot invent timing that is not in the SRT.
• It will not read captions that are already embedded in a video file. SnailText generates subtitles from the audio; it does not extract an existing subtitle track. If your file already has one, Premiere can import it directly and you do not need this at all.
• It will not convert a subtitle file you already have. If you have a VTT and Premiere wants an SRT, use the SRT and VTT converter, which runs in your browser.