# Add Text to Video Online - Timed Titles & Captions You Can Drag into Place

> Free online tool to add text to a video: several text layers, each with its own start and end time, dragged into place on a live preview, with fades.

- URL: https://qilingtools.com/en/video/add-text
- Category: Video Tools (https://qilingtools.com/en/video)
- Tags: [Video](https://qilingtools.com/en/tags/video), [Watermark](https://qilingtools.com/en/tags/watermark)
- Last updated: 2026-10-26
- Price: Free, no sign-up
- Privacy: Runs locally in the browser; files are never uploaded

Add a title to a short video, labels to a tutorial, a place and date to a vlog, or selling points to a product clip. After uploading, the video frame appears right on the page: scrub the preview slider to the moment you want, then drag the text into position with a mouse or finger — what you see is what you get. Add as many text layers as you need, each with its own start and end time (one click uses the current preview time; leave the end empty to keep it until the end). Style each layer with font size, text color, outline color and width, a rounded semi-transparent background box, bold and left/center/right alignment, and turn on a fade in/out if you like. Text is rendered with your system fonts to transparent images in the browser and composited onto the video for its time range, so Chinese, Japanese, Korean and emoji never turn into boxes. The result is a standard H.264 MP4 with the original audio.

## How to use

1. Upload a video and scrub the preview to the frame where the text should appear
2. Type the text, set start/end times, drag it into place on the preview and adjust size, color, outline, box and fade
3. Click Add text for more layers, then Add text & export to download the MP4

## Features

- Multiple text layers with individual time ranges
- Drag to position on a live preview — WYSIWYG
- Font size, color, outline color and width, background box color and opacity
- Bold, left/center/right alignment and automatic line wrapping
- Optional fade in/out per layer
- CJK and emoji render correctly
- H.264 MP4 output that keeps the original audio

## FAQ

### Will the text end up exactly where it is in the preview?

Yes. The preview is drawn at the video's real resolution, and the export uses the very same rendered text image and coordinates, so position, size and line breaks match. Text boxes are kept inside the frame so they never run off the edge.

### Why doesn't Chinese or emoji text turn into boxes?

Many online tools write text with FFmpeg's drawtext filter, which shows boxes when a font is missing. Here the browser draws the text with the fonts already on your device into a transparent PNG, which is then overlaid on the video — so every script and emoji displays correctly.

### Are my files uploaded to a server?

No. Everything runs locally in your browser via WebAssembly. Files never leave your computer and are discarded when you close the page.

### Do I need to sign up or pay?

No. The site is completely free, requires no account, has no usage limits and adds no watermarks.

## Related tools

- [Compress Video](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/compress): Free online video compressor: shrink MP4, MOV and other formats with H.264 encoding and resolution scaling, at the strength you pick. Processed locally.
- [Convert Video](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/convert): Free online video converter: convert MOV, MKV, AVI, FLV, WebM and more to MP4 or WebM. Powered by FFmpeg, processed locally, no upload.
- [Trim Video](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/trim): Free online video trimmer: set start and end times to cut a clip; fast mode finishes in seconds without re-encoding. Processed locally, no upload.
- [Video to GIF](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/to-gif): Free online video to GIF converter: cut a clip and create a high-quality animated GIF with adjustable frame rate and width. Processed locally, no upload.
- [Extract Audio](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/extract-audio): Free online tool to extract audio from MP4, MOV and other videos as MP3, M4A or WAV. Processed locally, no upload.
- [Video Screenshot](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/screenshot): Free online video frame grabber: enter a timestamp and save that frame as a full-resolution PNG or JPG. Processed locally, no upload.
- [Mute Video](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/mute): Free online video muter: remove the audio track from a video in one click without re-encoding the picture. Finishes in seconds, processed locally, no upload.
- [Merge Videos](https://qilingtools.com/en/video/merge): Free online video joiner: combine several MP4, MOV or MKV clips into one file, even when their resolution and frame rate differ. Processed locally.
