How to Add Subtitles in Final Cut Pro X – the ultimate guide

Table of contents

1. Subtitles and Captions: What’s the Difference?
2. Creating an .SRT file
3. Creating Subtitles in Final Cut Pro X
4. The advantages of adding subtitles in Final Cut Pro X
5. More about Amberscript

Subtitles are an important tool to engage with your viewers and ensure your video content makes an impact. If you want to learn how you can add subtitles into your Final Cut Pro X editing software, then this guide is for you!

Keep reading to learn more about captions and subtitles, how to add them into videos, and the benefits of doing so. We’ll also review how you can automatically create .SRT files by using the power of AI with Amberscript. 

Subtitles and Captions: What’s the Difference?

Before we get into the steps you need to take to add subtitles in Final Cut Pro X, it’s necessary to address an important question: what’s the difference between subtitles and captions? While you may think that they are the same thing at first glance, captions and subtitles serve distinct purposes.

The term subtitle refers to the text you see on your screen while watching a video. Their purpose is to translate all the spoken dialogue into written text so viewers can watch content in another language. Videos with subtitles assume that the person viewing them can hear audio cues but still need to translate the dialogue.  

Although captions also translate the dialogue in the video, they also describe things like sound effects, audio cues, and music. This means that they can give additional context to the viewer even if they don’t have their sound on at all. 

Creating an .SRT file

When you create video content in Final Cut Pro X, you must add subtitles to your final product. Follow this easy step by step process to get started:

Creating Subtitles in Final Cut Pro X

1. After you have a completed .SRT File, it’s time to upload it into Final Cut Pro X

2. Once you uploaded the file, edit it based on your preferences

• Adjust the Subtitles as Needed

Although Final Cut Pro X will use the .SRT file as a starting point for the subtitles, you’ll likely need to make some adjustments. When you load the titles and text into your project, you must arrange the timing to ensure that everything lines as desired for your viewers. 

To trim the subtitles, all you need to do is grab the block and crop it to the appropriate length. Drag and drop the titles to move them around – just do so with caution as they will overwrite existing captions when you place them on top. 

• Format your Video File

So, you’ve got the subtitles uploaded and everything is in place – now what? At this point, you can choose to stylize the text or add some custom formatting to the video.

Remember that the goal of subtitles is to provide a simple solution for translating dialogue spoken in the video. However, there are times it makes sense to choose the font or the text color for the subtitles to help the viewer understand the additional context. 

You can also emphasize specific parts of the subtitles by underlining them or using bold and italic formatting.

• Export your video

The last step to add subtitles in Final Cut Pro X is to export the video. There are two ways you can do this: a regular export or a caption role.

If you choose a regular export, you simply need to click File > Export and save the file accordingly. Note that the captions will not be included in the final product if you use this option. 

To ensure that the video track includes the subtitles in the final export, you need to complete the following steps:

• Select Roles in the export window
• Click the Captions icon and select Burn in Captions
• Once you hit OK, it will close the window
• Choose File then Export as normal

The advantages of adding subtitles in Final Cut Pro X

Now that you’ve learned how to add subtitles in Final Cut Pro X, you may be wondering, how can they be used to boost engagement? Including subtitles in your video content can improve overall engagement by connecting with users that keep their sound off, making your content accessible, and enhancing your SEO efforts. 

1. Connect with Viewers that Keep Their Sound Off

You may be surprised to learn that most people that watch videos on their mobile devices do so without turning the sound on. Whether they are in a public place and can’t turn up the audio or simply do not have access to headphones, these users need subtitles to understand the context of your videos.

2. Make your Content Accessible

Another way that subtitles increase engagement is that it makes your content accessible to everyone. Individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing won’t be able to enjoy your videos to the fullest without the help of subtitles. 

In other words, if you want to comply with accessibility requirements and ensure that everyone can engage with your brand, you should add subtitles to your videos. 

3. Enhance your SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to creating content that allows your website to rank higher on the search engine results pages. You want to be the first result when someone Googles a topic you have shared a video about, right?

Unfortunately, search engine algorithms are not able to index video content alone. However, they can if you have subtitles and an attached transcript! Use that as an opportunity to improve your SEO efforts and engage with a broader range of viewers. 

More about Amberscript

Human-Made Subtitles

We already described how easy and fast it is to generate subtitles with the Amberscript software. On the other hand, in many cases you need 100% accurate transcripts. Luckily, Amberscript also offers professional services provided by native speakers in more than 15 languages.

Translated Subtitles

Our newest product is Translated Subtitles. Our team of native speakers will translate your audio into 15 languages ensuring up to 100% accuracy, so you can scale your content for a global audience.After uploading your files into your dashboard on our platform, our software will automatically generate your subtitles. This will be translated by our freelancers and our quality checker will make sure that everything is of the highest quality. You can export your file as a video with subtitles or the subtitles separately in Text, SRT, VTT or EBU-STL and many other formats.