How to Add Text in DaVinci Resolve: Titles, Captions, and More

Adding text to your video in DaVinci Resolve is one of the most common editing tasks — whether you're creating a YouTube intro, adding subtitles, or building lower thirds for a corporate presentation. The good news: Resolve gives you multiple ways to do it. The approach that works best depends on what kind of text you need and how much control you want over the final look.

Where Text Lives in DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve handles text through its Effects Library, specifically under the Titles category. You'll find this panel in the Edit page (and to a lesser extent in the Cut page). Text elements in Resolve aren't just typed onto the timeline — they're applied as generator clips that sit on video tracks above your footage.

This is an important distinction. Unlike some simpler editors where text is a layer effect applied to a clip, Resolve treats titles as independent clips. That means they can be trimmed, moved, and layered just like video or audio.

The Main Text Options Available

Resolve gives you several text tools, each suited to different situations:

Text (Standard)

The basic Text generator is the quickest way to add a title. In the Edit page, open the Effects Library, find Titles, and drag Text onto a track above your clip. Click the clip, then open the Inspector panel on the right to type your content and adjust font, size, color, alignment, and position.

This works well for simple overlays — chapter markers, speaker names, or a watermark-style logo. It's limited in animation capability but gets the job done fast.

Text+ (The Recommended Workhorse)

Text+ is the more capable version and the one most editors gravitate toward. It uses the Fusion compositing engine under the hood, which means you get access to:

• Multiple text layers within a single clip
• Per-character styling — different fonts, colors, or sizes within the same text block
• Built-in animation controls including write-on effects, position keyframes, and fades
• 3D positioning when combined with Fusion nodes

You add it the same way — drag from the Effects Library — but when you click into it, you'll see a Fusion button at the bottom of the screen. Clicking that opens the full Fusion compositor, where Text+ is connected to a node graph. For basic use, you won't need to go there; the Inspector handles most adjustments. But if you need custom animations, Fusion is where that happens. 🎬

Fusion Titles (Pre-Built Templates)

In the Effects Library > Titles, you'll also see a collection of Fusion Title templates — pre-animated text effects with names like "Basic Lower Third," "Cinematic Title," or "Subtitle Fade." These are drag-and-drop animations that require no manual keyframing.

Each template exposes editable fields in the Inspector (usually just the text content and sometimes a color or duration control). They're a fast way to get polished-looking results, though the customization ceiling is lower unless you're comfortable editing Fusion node graphs.

Subtitles (for Dialogue and Captions)

The Subtitles track is a dedicated feature for dialogue-style captions. You add it via Timeline > Add Subtitle Track. This creates a special track where subtitle clips snap to the bottom of the frame and follow subtitle formatting conventions.

Subtitles in Resolve can be exported as SRT files or burned into the video. This is worth knowing if you're delivering content for platforms that support caption files — you won't have to bake text into the image if your destination supports sidecar caption files.

Adjusting Your Text: The Inspector Panel

Regardless of which text type you use, most of your formatting happens in the Inspector (top-right of the Edit page). Key controls include:

• Font family and style — choose from fonts installed on your system
• Size — scaled relative to your project resolution
• Color — with opacity controls
• Alignment — horizontal and vertical
• Position — using X/Y coordinates or an on-screen drag handle
• Drop shadow and outline — basic style options available in standard Text; expanded in Text+

One thing that catches people out: position in the Inspector is relative to the canvas, not the clip beneath it. If your text isn't where you expect, check whether your project resolution matches your timeline resolution — mismatches can shift positioning logic.

Animating Text with Keyframes

To animate text movement or opacity in the Edit page, enable keyframing via the diamond icon next to any Inspector property. Move the playhead to a different point on your timeline, change the value, and Resolve creates a transition between the two states.

For more precise animation — easing curves, path motion, multi-property animation — you'll need to take the clip into Fusion. This is where the skill ceiling rises significantly. Fusion offers a full compositing environment, and what's achievable there goes well beyond what most basic editors need. 🎨

Factors That Shape Your Workflow

How straightforward text editing feels in Resolve depends on a few variables:

Your Resolve version matters. The free version of DaVinci Resolve includes Text, Text+, and the standard Fusion title templates. DaVinci Resolve Studio unlocks additional built-in templates and some collaboration features, but for most text tasks, the free version is fully capable.

Your hardware affects Fusion performance specifically. Text+ and Fusion Titles use GPU-accelerated compositing. On lower-spec machines, complex animated text may play back slowly or need rendering before it plays in real time.

Your familiarity with node-based compositing determines how far you can take Text+. If you've never worked with Fusion, the basics — typing and styling text — are approachable within minutes. Getting into custom animations, however, requires learning a workflow that's meaningfully different from traditional layer-based editors like Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro.

Your project type also steers which tool makes sense. A single talking-head video might need nothing beyond a basic lower third from the template library. A branded series with consistent motion graphics might push you toward building reusable Fusion compositions.

The distance between "I need to add a name tag to this clip" and "I want fully custom animated typography" is significant in Resolve — and where you land on that spectrum shapes which of these tools you'll actually spend time with. 🖥️