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Generate and animate captions in Canva

AI Summary

Increase views and engagement to your content by generating and editing captions for your videos and supported audio files. Editable Captions can be downloaded with your videos.

Editable Captions is a different feature from captions generated through Accessibility and the Show captions button.

Before adding captions, make sure your design meets these requirements:

  • Your design is a video, social media type, and supported audio files (M4A, MP3, OGG, WAV, or WEBM): To check, go to File—the design type appears below the design name.
  • Your video contains speech. On desktop, make sure the video is fully uploaded before generating captions. On mobile devices, videos now appear directly in the Captions Panel; no upload needed. Only the audio is processed, so captions generate faster.

With Editable Captions, you can:

  • View and edit captions as a timeline layer in the video.
  • Choose from more than 20 caption style packs that can be applied with one click.

Note: Captions for audio files are available in the video timeline and aren’t available in page view.

Generate captions for videos

  1. From the editor:
    • Go to the
      Text, then under Dynamic text, select Captions.
    • Go to
       Apps, then search for Captions.
    • Select the video or audio file you want to add captions to, then select Captions from the toolbar.
  2. Choose a caption style pack.
  3. Optional: Select the dropdown under Apply captions to, then deselect any videos you don't want included.
  4. Select Generate captions.

Canva generates captions and adds them to your video timeline.

Style Captions

You can choose from more than 20 curated style packs. Style packs bundle font, colour, and animations with accessibility-safe defaults. As you browse caption styles, you can see them animate in real time so you can preview how they'll look before applying.

1. Hover over a style pack to preview the style.

  • If no caption styles match your Brand Kit, they’ll be hidden in the Captions panel, and the Brand Kit default will be shown instead.
  • Caption style packs will be available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian, and German at launch. Support for additional locales will be added soon.

Change caption style pack

  1. Select any caption segment from the video timeline.
  2. From the toolbar, select Captions to open the Captions panel.
  3. Select Styles tab
  4. Hover over or select a style pack to preview the style.
  5. Select a style pack to apply it to all captions in your video.

The style colour picker updates your caption colours live, so you can see exactly how your captions will look before applying.

Translate captions

Translate captions into another language before generating them.

  1. Open the Captions panel.
  2. Under Translate captions into, choose the language you want your captions translated into.
  3. Generate your captions.

Improve captions accuracy

By default, Canva automatically detects the spoken language in your video or audio. If the detected language doesn’t match the language in your media, delete your existing captions. Then select the correct spoken language and generate captions again.

Selecting the spoken language manually can improve speech recognition and produce more accurate captions.

To specify the spoken language:

  1. Select Edit next to Automatically detect spoken language.
  2. Select the spoken language from the dropdown.

If your design contains multiple videos or audio clips in different languages, make sure the media selected in the Apply captions to dropdown matches the spoken language you selected.

Customise individual captions in video

  1. Select a caption segment.
  2. Use the toolbar to adjust the font, colour, size, or effects.
  3. Repeat for each caption that you want to customise.

Repeat the steps for every caption that you want to style.

Animate video captions

  1. Select the caption of the video that you want to animate.
  2. On the menu bar, select Animate.
  3. Choose a caption animation under Captions:
    • Reveal
    • Highlight
    • Snake

You can also explore other non-caption animations. Repeat the steps for every caption that you want to animate.

Note: We're gradually rolling out this feature. If you don't have access yet, keep your app updated and stay tuned for updates.

Repeat the steps for every caption that you want to animate.

Troubleshooting missing captions

Captions may sometimes fail to generate if:

  • The speech is unclear
  • Background noise is too high
  • Music overlaps with speech

Workarounds

1. Re-upload your video

  • Go to Uploads in Canva.
  • Re-upload your video file.
  • Add it back to your design and try generating captions again.

Note: This is for

2. Check your audio track

  • If background noise or music is too loud, try lowering it in the editor.
  • Ensure speech is clear and not distorted.

3. Manually add captions (last resort)

  • Use Canva’s Text tool to add captions manually.
  • Place text boxes where needed and align them with your audio.

Can I edit the timing of the captions?

Yes, Captions appear as a dedicated timeline layer, so you can see exactly where they play in your video. Edit the text and adjust the timing within the video timeline view.

What languages are captions available in?

These languages are currently supported in captions: Afrikaans, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Marathi, Maori, Nepali, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese, and Welsh.

Can I download my designs with captions?

You can download your designs with captions by exporting them as an MP4 video. Captions won't be embedded in image formats or PDFs, so be sure to choose a video format.

The Captions option isn’t available

What can cause this

Your design may not be a supported video type, or the media may not contain speech.

What to do

  1. Go to File and confirm the design type is video, supported social media, or a supported audio file.
  2. Select your media and confirm it contains spoken audio.
  3. Wait until the file is fully uploaded before generating captions.

Some style packs are missing

What can cause this

Style packs that don’t match your Brand Kit may be hidden, or they may not be available in your locale yet.

What to do

  • Check your Brand Kit settings to see if restrictions apply.
  • Try switching to a different design or account to confirm availability.
  • If the style pack isn’t available in your locale, support may be added in a future update.

Captions are inaccurate or missing words.

What can cause this

Background noise, music, or unclear speech can interfere with speech recognition.

What to do

  1. From the Editor, select your video.
  2. Go to Audio tools in the floating toolbar.
  3. Select Enhance voice to improve audio clarity.
  4. Regenerate captions or edit the caption text manually.

This is only a workaround and may not work for all scenarios.

Learn how to edit and manage video captions in Canva.

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