How to Add and Manage Closed Captions with Adobe Premiere Pro

Rev captions are fully compatible with Adobe Premiere Pro, one of the world’s most popular video editing suites.  Premiere Pro allows you to import captions as a ‘sidecar’ file, edit them, and add them to your videos. Use the following step-by-step instructions to add and manage closed captions in Premier Pro.

How to Add and Manage Closed Captions with Adobe Premiere Pro

1. Order the correct format

Adobe Premiere Pro accepts sidecar caption files in the following formats: SCC, MCC, XML, and STL. If you have previously ordered captions from Rev in a different format, we can convert them for you at no additional charge.

2. Import your captions

You import your caption ‘sidecar’ file the same way as any other file with Premiere Pro. Simply open your video project, and then go to the top navigation bar.  Select File, then Import, and select the caption file from Rev., or you may click on the file in Media Browser or File Explorer and use the file’s context menu to import it into Premiere Pro.

Rather not deal with caption files? Rev now offers burned-in captions (open captions). Just check the “burned-in captions” box at checkout and you’ll receive a video with permanent, hard-coded captions added straight to your videos. Also available for foreign language subtitles!

3. Display your captions

Your captions are displayed as captions blocks in the captions panel of Adobe Premiere Pro. There’s two ways to display them in the Source Monitor and Program Monitor.

On the lower right of a monitor, click + to open the button editor, select the captions display button, and confirm by clicking OK, or drag the Closed Caption button from the button editor to the button bar.

Also, In the Source or Program Monitor pop-up menus, you can click the Wrench icon and enable Captions Display.

You are able to toggle caption display on and off. Like audio clips, the caption clip is represented in the Timeline’s source indicators, and can be enabled or disabled or linked to any video track. When the track is expanded, the caption blocks in a caption clip are visible, with End of Caption indicators to show where the blocks begin and end.

4. Edit your captions

While Rev guarantees 99% accuracy for files that are clearly audible, there may be certain adjustments you wish to make. Simply select the caption file in the Timeline panel, open the Captions panel, and you can edit the clips. You can also change text the alignment, font color, background color, and timing through Adobe Premiere Pro.

The text clips are also visible from the timeline, allowing you to make any adjustments you wish to be in sync with the media. This is a valuable option if you make edits to your video.

5. Export your captions

To create a new sidecar file to match your video, simply select your caption file in the sequence. Then go to the top navigation bar and select File, then Export, then Media. In the Export Settings dialogue box, select a file format for your video. Next, click on the captions tab, then click on export options and select sidecar file. Select a file format for your captions and click Export.

You can also embed your captions directly into a Quicktime video, simply by selecting Quicktime as your video’s file format and ‘embed in output file’ under export options.