Adding text to video

A picture's worth a thousand words - but sometimes, your movie or photo slideshows can benefit from just a bit more. That's where titles, captions, subtitles and credits come in.

Titles - It is standalone clips meant to precede a movie to introduce the name of the movie to the viewerCredits - It tends to appear at the end of you r project, where you may want to acknowledge actors, contributors and copyright information.Captions/ subtitles- Subtitles and captions are similar but distinct means of enhancing communication in visual media. Both are always overlaid over an existing video or image clip, and display for that clip's duration. They are used to explain and provide context to the clip currently being displayed. Subtitling is most frequently used as a way of translating a medium into another language so that speakers of other languages can enjoy it. Captioning, on the other hand, is more commonly used as a service to aid deaf and hearing-impaired audiences.

In openshot editor, there are no separate buttons to create titles, captions, subtitles and credits. You can create a text clip and by the way it is positioned in the timeline the nature of the text clip is be changed to title, credit, captions and subtitles.

Creating text clips

Step 1: Create a text slide1. Open the title editor by clicking on ‘Title’ from menu bar (or Ctrl+T) and select ‘New Title’

from the dropdown option

2. The title editor window will appear as shown below.

3. There are many templates like bar, cloud, oval, ribbon, etc. So first select a template for the title file. To select the template click on the drop down arrow as shown below and select the required template.

For example, the template ‘Oval 2’ is selected

4. Click the create new title button and give a name to the title file in the box that appears.

5. A window appears, in which the title and subtitle has to be entered. Once the title and subtitle are entered select apply

For example, enter title as ‘Bacteria’ and subtitle as ‘Friend or foe?’. On clicking ‘Apply’, the title appears in the selected template.

Step 2: Editing the text slideText slide can be edited in two ways:

● By using simple editing options in open-shot itself (simple edit)● By using advanced editor which takes to inkscape application (Advanced edit)

Simple edit can be used to edit title only with text. This editing includes changing font type, style, colour and background. Incase you want to add image to the title or edit the template then advanced edit should be used.

Simple Edit

Font properties (type and style), font color, background colour of the title can be changed by selecting appropriate options from the window

When you click on the Font properties, the window as shown below appears. Select the font type and style and click OK. The selected style and type gets applied to the text.

When you click on the font colour bar, the colour window appears. Select the colour by moving the line in the outer ring and the shade using the small circle in the inner triangle and then click OK.

When you click on the background colour bar, the colour window appears. Select the colour by moving the line in the outer ring and the shade using the small circle in the inner triangle and then click OK.

For example, after after font properties, colour and background, the text appears as shown below

Once you feel the text is ready, then click on the ‘Apply’. This saves the text in the form of the image (SVG format) and gets displayed in the project window.Now this acts just like an image which can be dragged to the timeline and placed wherever required.

Advanced edit

1. Click advanced editor.

2. This takes to inkscape application.

3. You can add images, edit text, edit images etc. For example, the colour of the bubbles in the template is changed, few stars are added

4. After editing the slide in the inkscape application, select File → Save. This saves the file as SVG Image in inkscape. Then close the inkscape application. Though you have closed the inkscape application, openshot text editor will be open as it is (Note: the changes you made in inkscape may not be seen in the text editor window. Don't panic). Just click apply. Now you can see the title slide in the project window. Now the file is ready to be dragged on to the timeline.

Step 3: Fixing the title in the timeline and animate

Drag the title file to the timeline and position it based on the requirement. Right click on it and click animate option and a list of animate effect appear. Select the preferred effect. This applies the effect to the title. Your title for the video is ready.

Adding titles:Titles are typically presented at the very beginning of your project. They tend to be a single word or at best only a few words long, but are usually shown in a large font size. So after creating the text clips, add the clip as the first part on the timeline before the video.

Adding Credits:Credits are used to acknowledge cast and crew, as well as copyrights. They usually close a movie and tend to be presented on a neutral background (typically black). So it is best to present credits on your own text clip rather than using a template. This stops the viewer from being distracted by the underlying video clip. A possible requirement when adding credits is the ability to display more than one frame's worth of text (you may have a long list of cast, crew, and copyright information to acknowledge!). This is made possible by using rolling credits—the credits are made to move up, down, left, or right. So after creating the text clips, add the clip at the last part on the timeline.

Adding captions/ subtitles:Captions/ subtitles are typically superimposed onto an existing clip to explain the underlying clip in text form. Due to their different contexts and purposes, captions and subtitles are characterized by a few important differences. Subtitles, as the name suggests, are usually placed at the bottom of the screen. Captions on the other hand, may be placed in different locations on the screen in order to make clear to the audience who is speaking.

Adding Scrolling T ext To create the effect of scrolling titles, you need to create the title sequence by cutting the whole text into many different screen-sized titles. Offset each title on the timeline and animate.For example let us try to scroll the learning objectives.

1. Create each objective as a slide.

2. Add each title image of objects to the timeline, set the length of each image to 5 seconds (fix the time you need), and then offset them between two tracks.

3. Animate each title by right-click on each title clip and choose animate > bottom to top (or any other animation option you like). This will create the illusion that your entire credits are scrolling from bottom to top in one continuous sequence, with no gaps. Be sure to overlap the titles as shown in the illustration so there are no gaps between the titles. If you want to give transition between two slides, you can give it.