Add French Subtitles to a Video

How French punctuation meets the renderer

French typesetting puts a space before the two-part marks ? ! ; and :, and inside « guillemets ». In careful print in France that is a no-break space, often the narrow kind, so the mark can never end up on a line of its own. The editor accepts all of these characters, and the SRT and VTT exports keep them exactly as typed. The burned-in picture treats them a little differently, and it pays to know how:

Wrapping

When a long subtitle wraps, every space is a possible break point, no-break spaces included. A ? or » can therefore open the second row, and a « can close the first.

Drawing

Spaces between words are drawn as ordinary word spaces, so a narrow no-break space comes out as a full-width space in the picture.

One-line subtitles

Nothing wraps, so neither point arises. AI subtitles arrive as single lines of about 32 characters, which keeps most of them in this group.

In practice: whenever a subtitle wraps, look at both ends of each row in the preview. If punctuation has drifted away from its word, click into the line's text box and press Enter where you want the break. Line breaks you type yourself are kept exactly, and each row then wraps on its own only if it is still too wide.

French subtitles in six steps

1. Open the editor on this page and select your video (MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM or MKV).
2. Leave the AI switch on. Set "Subtitle language" to auto-detect for French speech, or to French for a video in English, Spanish, Arabic or another supported language.
3. Press AI subtitles and sign in with Google. A 45-minute training session costs 45 credits (4.5¢).
4. Read the lines while the video plays and correct them in the list. With the cursor outside the text fields, Left and Right jump a second and Shift with either arrow moves a tenth, which helps when you set start times by ear.
5. In Style, choose the preset and size, then check the longest subtitles for separated punctuation as described above.
6. Click Render video, confirm, and download the MP4. Export SRT too if the subtitles are also going to YouTube or Vimeo as a track.

Already have a French SRT? Switch AI off, choose Import SRT / VTT and start at step 4; no sign-in is needed.

Accented capitals and ligatures

French readers notice a missing accent on a capital at once. UPPERCASE in the Style panel keeps them: été becomes ÉTÉ and à becomes À, in line with the Académie française's advice to accent capitals. All bundled fonts include É, È, Ê, À, Ç, Œ and the other accented letters, so nothing falls back to another typeface mid-word.

The ligature œ, as in cœur, sœur and œuvre, is another detail to check. Recognition may write oe instead; correct it to œ if your style requires it. The same goes for æ in the rare words that use it.

Numbers, times and apostrophes

• Thousands: French separates them with a space, as in 1 500 euros. Because every space is a possible break, a wrapped line could split 1 500 across two rows. Check the preview, or put a manual break elsewhere in the subtitle.
• Decimals take a comma: 3,5 millions, not 3.5.
• Times: 14 h 30 or 14h30. Either is fine as long as the video uses one form throughout.
• Apostrophes: l’équipe, aujourd’hui. Straight ' and curly ’ both render; just don't mix them in one video.
• Ordinals and abbreviations: 1er, 2e, M., Mme. Recognition may spell these out; shorten them if the line is tight.

Review points: homophones, tu and vous

French is full of words that sound alike, and recognition has to choose between them from context. Read for these rather than listening for them:

• a and à, ou and où, et and est, ces and ses, son and sont, leur and leurs.
• Silent plural endings: il parle and ils parlent sound the same.
• Past participle agreement: les vidéos que j'ai montré and montrées sound identical, and only one is correct.

When the French is a translation, you also have to settle tu or vous. English "you" carries no clue, so a channel that says tu to its viewers can end up saying vous, or switching between the two mid-video. Pick one and correct the whole track.

There is a single French option, with no separate setting for Québec, Belgium or Switzerland. If your viewers are there, adjust vocabulary such as septante, nonante or courriel by hand. For a calm way to work through all of this, see proofreading an AI transcript.

Troubleshooting

• A ? or ! alone at the start of a row: add a manual line break so the mark stays with its word, or shorten the subtitle until it fits on one line.
• Lines flagged as too long or too fast: translated French usually runs longer than English. The editor warns above 42 characters per line and 21 per second; trim a word or use Split at the playhead.
• Accents broken after importing an SRT: the file isn't UTF-8. Re-save it as UTF-8 and import again.
• Translated lines arriving early or late: timing for translated subtitles is approximate, so drag the edges on the timeline.

For a full review order, use fixing auto-generated subtitles; for punctuation habits across languages, subtitle formatting conventions.

Other French jobs

• French speech, English readers: choose English here for subtitles, or let French to English video translation dub it.
• French text only, without a new video: the French subtitle generator gives you the file.
• A transcript of a French video: French video to text.
• A French voice instead of French text: the French video translator.
• Publishing on YouTube as well: upload the exported SRT as a track next to the burned-in version; subtitles for YouTube videos explains when each one fits.

About the subtitle editor on this page

Opens

MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM, MKV videos your browser can decode

Subtitles from

AI (from the speech, optionally translated into one of 21 languages), an SRT or VTT file, or typing them in

You download

An MP4 with the subtitles drawn into the picture at the original resolution and frame rate, plus SRT and VTT files

Cost

Editing, styling, rendering and SRT/VTT export are free, with no account and no watermark. AI subtitles cost 1 credit per minute (5-credit minimum per video); signing in with Google gives 100 free credits and accounts get 10 free credits a day

Privacy

The video never leaves your device and is rendered in your browser. Only for AI subtitles is the audio sent, over HTTPS, and it is deleted within 30 minutes of delivery

Rendering needs

Chrome or Edge 94+, Safari 16.4+, or Firefox 130+ on a computer. Editing and SRT/VTT export work in any current browser