How to Burn In Captions in DaVinci Resolve (2026)

Burning in captions in DaVinci Resolve means the words become part of the picture. You import an SRT you already trust, put those cues on a subtitle track, style them, and render a new video file. Anyone who plays that file sees the line. There is no caption button to hide it.

Do this after you have chosen open captions as the delivery. A soft SRT stays editable. Burn-in copies the wording into pixels. The choice is covered in how to burn in captions vs soft subs. This page is the Resolve job once that choice is made.

Menu names move between Resolve 18, 19, and later builds. The free app and Studio do not always show the same Deliver options. Follow the job, then match the words on your screen. When a control is missing, use Blackmagic's page: DaVinci Resolve.

What you need before the timeline

Three things:

• The finished picture. The same cut you will publish.
• An SRT timed to that cut, made from that file.
• A reason this export must show words to every viewer.

Empty cues, a wrong name, or a paragraph stuffed into one block should be fixed in the caption file before you style anything. Burn-in will paint them. Use the caption file checklist before you publish.

Make the SRT by uploading the master on File Transcribe, correcting lines in the segment editor, and exporting SRT on Pro. A guest can try a file from the homepage. Free is about 50 minutes a month. Pro is about $19 a month for about 2,000 minutes, and that plan includes SRT and VTT. Plus is about $49 a month for about 5,000 minutes. Numbers are on pricing. Resolve is the app that paints the words. File Transcribe stops at the timed file, and it does not join a recording for you.

If this burn-in is for YouTube, pick the face before you render: best subtitle fonts for YouTube. Arial, Roboto at Regular or Medium, or Verdana. Leave script fonts and thin weights off the track.

1. Import the video and the SRT

Open the project that already holds the timeline, or start clean and import the finished movie.

Bring the SRT in as subtitles. On many current builds that is File > Import > Subtitle, or dragging the `.srt` into the Media Pool as a subtitle. The Import label has shifted before. If Resolve wants to treat the file as an ordinary clip, stop and look for the subtitle command. An SRT that lands as a video clip will not become captions. Some builds hide import on the subtitle track menu instead. Search Help for "subtitle" before you retype the cues as titles.

2. Put the cues on a subtitle track

Go to the Edit page. Subtitles live on their own track, separate from video and audio. If the timeline has none, add one from the track header. That command is often a right-click, and the label changes between versions. A new video track full of Fusion titles is a different job.

Drop the cues on that track and check the first spoken line against the picture. Timing should carry over when the transcript was made from this same file.

If every cue piles up at the first frame, the SRT and the timeline do not share a start. The transcript came from a longer master, the timeline starts at an hour timecode, or the picture was trimmed after the SRT was written. Re-export from the exact file on the timeline. Nudging cues by hand hides the mismatch until the next cut.

Fusion text and Text+ design one lower third. They are a slow way to rebuild a whole caption file. Stay on the subtitle track.

3. Style the track once

Select the subtitle track, or select the cues together, and open the Inspector. Look for font, size, fill, an outline or a background, and position. The panel names drift. Style the group. Walking cue by cue is how one line ends up in a different size.

For a YouTube burn-in, a plain sans at regular or bold weight is enough. White text on a dark box helps when the shot is busy. Keep two lines, and keep them above the bottom band where the YouTube app draws its controls. Use the same settings on every cue so the video looks like one piece.

Play a bright shot and a dark shot. A shadow that looks fine on a dim interview can vanish on a white slide. Watching only the hero frame misses that.

A typo in one cue can be fixed in Resolve. A name that is wrong all the way through should go back to the transcript. Fix it in File Transcribe, export a new SRT, and replace the track. Restyling a bad file only makes a longer render of the same error.

4. Deliver a new file with the words in the picture

Open the Deliver page. Set the codec and frame you actually need, often H.264 or H.265 at 1080p, matching the timeline frame rate.

Then find subtitles for this render. In recent versions the control sits in Deliver settings, in a Subtitle area. Choose the option that burns subtitles into the video. The label moves: burn into video, burn-in, or a format list where a separate SRT is the other choice. Read it before you add the job to the queue.

A sidecar is useful when a platform also wants soft captions. It leaves the picture clean. If the folder has a new movie plus a separate SRT, play the movie. No words in the image means you exported a sidecar. Change the Deliver setting and render again.

Save a new file name. Keep the master with no captions in it. The next wording fix is a new render from that master.

After the render, play the file outside Resolve. Check the first cue, one in the middle, the last cue, and one cluttered frame. The Deliver preview is not the file a client will compress.

When your menus do not match this page

Match the job, not a screenshot from another year:

1. The SRT arrives as subtitles.
2. The cues sit on a subtitle track, in time with this cut.
3. One style covers the track.
4. Deliver burns that track into a new movie.
5. The clean master stays in the folder.

If a checkbox is missing, look up subtitles for your exact version and compare the free build with Studio. Blackmagic moves features between them. Rebuilding the SRT as Fusion titles is the long way around a missing burn-in switch.

Premiere has its own import path: how to add captions in Premiere from an SRT. The file check and the font rules are the same in either editor.

FAQ

Can DaVinci Resolve burn in an SRT?

Yes. Import the SRT as subtitles, place it on a subtitle track, and deliver with burn-in enabled. A Deliver setting that only writes a separate SRT leaves the picture without captions.

Why did every caption land at the start of the timeline?

The SRT does not match this timeline's start. Build the SRT from the same cut and check the timeline start timecode. Sliding cues one at a time hides the problem until you change the picture again.

Which font should I burn in for YouTube?

Arial, Roboto Regular or Medium, or Verdana, with a box when the background is busy. The reasoning is in best subtitle fonts for YouTube.

Does the free version of Resolve burn in subtitles?

Subtitle tools on the Edit page are common on the free build. Some Deliver choices have lived in Studio. That split changes. If you cannot find burn-in, confirm your version on the DaVinci Resolve page before you recreate captions as titles.

Should I burn in, or upload the SRT to YouTube?

Upload the SRT when the YouTube caption button is enough. Burn in when the words have to travel with the picture, including copies that leave YouTube. One checked SRT can feed both. Soft upload from the file, burn-in from Resolve for the cut that needs paint. If the video is already yours on YouTube, transcribe YouTube videos is the path to a timed file. Otherwise upload the original export.

More guides

• Transcription guides
• Try File Transcribe free
• Transcript format guide
• Best transcription software
• Transcribe YouTube videos

Further reading

• W3C captions overview
• Google Speech-to-Text docs