How to Burn in Subtitles in Premiere Pro*
* Quickly, with minimal software/extras, and for free.
Update: this was written back in November 2016. It’s out of date.
I recommend using this up-to-date Adobe article instead.
Here’s the rest of the article as it appeared originally 2016.
Here’s a quick tutorial on how to burn in subtitles using Premiere.
You will need:
- Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015.3 (the functionality was removed in v. 10.4)
- A closed caption file (SRT, SCC, etc.)
Step 1: Convert the caption file to SCC.
Premiere kept giving me generic errors whenever I tried to import SRT files. It seems to play nice with SCCs. Convert SRTs to SCCs using this free tool.
Step 2: Import the caption file to Premiere.
Step 3: Drag the file onto your timeline as a layer on top of your video.
Step 4: Click on the wrench in the Project Panel and go to Closed Caption Display > Enable. Then, go to Closed Caption Display > Settings and change the setting to CEA-608 // CC1.
Scrub over the video in your timeline; the captions should be visible now.
Step 5: Hit File > Export and under Export Settings, go to the Captions tab. Change that top option to be “Burn Captions Into Video.” I recommend you export a 30 second test before exporting your entire subbed project.
That’s it! If you’re on the latest version of Premiere, it appears that Adobe hasn’t fixed this yet :/ You need to use Premiere CC v. 10.3.
There are paid tools that can help with this but I haven’t used them.