How to Add Text in Premiere Pro: A Complete Guide

Adobe Premiere Pro gives you several ways to add text to your video projects — from simple titles to animated lower thirds and complex motion graphics. Understanding which method fits your workflow depends on your version of Premiere, the complexity of the text you need, and how much control you want over typography and animation.

The Two Main Ways to Add Text

Premiere Pro offers two primary approaches to adding text: the Legacy Title tool (older projects) and the Essential Graphics panel with the Type tool (the current standard). Adobe has largely moved away from the Legacy Title system, so most workflows now center on Essential Graphics.

Using the Type Tool (Current Method)

This is the fastest way to drop text directly onto your timeline:

1. Open your project and place the playhead at the point in your timeline where you want the text to appear.
2. Select the Type tool from the toolbar (shortcut: T).
3. Click anywhere in the Program Monitor (the video preview window).
4. Type your text. Premiere Pro automatically creates a new graphics layer in your timeline.
5. Switch back to the Selection tool (V) to reposition or resize the text box.

Once your text layer is created, you can style it using the Essential Graphics panel (Window > Essential Graphics). This panel lets you adjust font, size, color, alignment, tracking, leading, and more.

Using the Essential Graphics Panel for More Control

For anything beyond a basic caption, the Essential Graphics panel is where the real work happens:

• Edit tab: Controls text styling, appearance, and position
• Browse tab: Accesses Motion Graphics Templates (.mogrt files) — pre-built animated title designs

To add a title from the panel:

1. Go to Window > Essential Graphics
2. Click the Browse tab
3. Drag any template directly onto your timeline
4. Double-click the clip in the timeline to open it in the Edit tab
5. Replace the placeholder text with your own

Styling Your Text 🎨

Once text is on the timeline, the Essential Graphics panel gives you layered control over how it looks:

These properties stack — you can combine a fill color, a soft shadow, and a subtle stroke simultaneously.

Working With Multiple Text Layers

If your title needs multiple lines or separate elements that move independently, each text object should be its own layer within the graphics clip. Inside a single graphics clip on the timeline, you can have several text layers, shape layers, and image layers all nested together. This is how lower thirds (name tags, subtitles, on-screen identifiers) are typically built.

To add another layer inside an existing graphics clip:

• Select the clip in the timeline
• Use the Type tool to click a new area in the Program Monitor
• A new text layer appears within the same clip in the Essential Graphics panel

Animating Text With Keyframes

Static text works fine for simple titles, but Premiere Pro lets you animate any property using keyframes in the timeline. Common animated properties include:

• Position — slide text in from off-screen
• Opacity — fade in or fade out
• Scale — grow text from small to full size

To keyframe a text property, expand the graphics clip in your timeline (click the arrow), find the property you want to animate under Video Effects > Motion or Opacity, and set keyframes at your start and end points by clicking the stopwatch icon. The Effect Controls panel (Shift+5) gives you precise numerical control over each keyframe.

For more complex animations, Motion Graphics Templates handle this automatically — the animation is baked into the template, and you only edit the text content.

Working With Motion Graphics Templates (.mogrt)

Premiere Pro integrates directly with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Fonts. Motion Graphics Templates let you use professionally animated title designs without building animations yourself. These templates can be:

• Installed from Adobe Stock
• Downloaded from third-party designers
• Built in After Effects and exported as .mogrt files
• Found free through various design communities

Once installed, they appear in the Essential Graphics Browse tab and behave exactly like a standard graphics clip — drag, drop, and edit the text fields.

Variables That Affect Your Workflow

How you add and manage text in Premiere Pro shifts meaningfully based on several factors:

• Premiere Pro version: The Essential Graphics workflow was introduced in version 11.1 (CC 2017). Older versions rely on the Legacy Title tool, which has a different interface entirely.
• Project type: A YouTube vlog needs simple captions; a broadcast package may require After Effects-integrated templates with precise brand typography.
• Font availability: Adobe Fonts sync directly through Creative Cloud, but system fonts and third-party fonts vary by machine — a project shared between editors may display font substitutions.
• Performance: Heavy text animations with many keyframes or complex .mogrt templates can increase render times on lower-spec machines.
• Collaboration: If multiple editors share a project, Premiere's local graphics stay with the project file, but .mogrt templates need to be installed on each editor's system separately.

A solo editor building quick social media content works very differently from a team producing broadcast graphics — and Premiere's text tools scale to cover both ends of that spectrum. Where you land on that range shapes which method gives you the right balance of speed and control.