Add Spanish Subtitles to a Video

Decide the region before anything else

Burned-in subtitles can't be swapped per country later, because the words are part of the picture. So the choice between Latin American and Peninsular Spanish belongs at the start, not after rendering. When the speech is being translated, the "Subtitle language" menu offers three Spanish entries:

Spanish

The general option, without a regional preference. Reasonable when viewers are spread across many countries.

Spanish (Latin America)

Asks the translation for Latin American wording. Check the result for choices such as ustedes for plural "you" and computadora rather than ordenador.

Spanish (Spain)

Asks for Peninsular wording. Look for vosotros where a group is addressed, and words such as coche and móvil.

If people in the video already speak Spanish, leave the menu on "Same as spoken (auto-detect)". What you want then is their own words as they said them, not a regional rewrite.

Adding Spanish subtitles, start to finish

1. Open the editor on this page and choose the video file (MP4, MOV, M4V, WebM or MKV).
2. Keep the AI switch on and set "Subtitle language": auto-detect for Spanish speech, or one of the three Spanish entries for an English, Portuguese or other video.
3. Press AI subtitles and sign in with Google. A 3-minute clip is billed at the minimum of 5 credits (0.5¢), and new accounts start with 100 free credits.
4. Play the video through. Correct words in the line list and drag a line's edges on the timeline wherever a subtitle appears before the speaker starts.
5. In Style, pick a preset and look at your longest Spanish line in the preview at the size you intend to publish.
6. Render, then download the MP4. Export SRT as well if you also want a caption track for YouTube or Facebook.

If a translator has already given you a Spanish SRT, skip steps 2 and 3: switch AI off, use Import SRT / VTT, and continue from step 4 without an account.

Accents, ñ and the opening ¿ ¡

Spanish punctuation and diacritics are the first thing a native reader checks and the first thing a careless workflow breaks.

• Every bundled font includes á, é, í, ó, ú, ü and ñ along with ¿ and ¡, so nothing switches to a different typeface halfway through a word.
• UPPERCASE keeps the accent: está becomes ESTÁ, which is what the Real Academia Española asks for in capitals.
• An opening ¿ or ¡ is written attached to the first word, so when a long line wraps, the mark travels with that word and never sits stranded at the end of a row.
• Make sure every question and exclamation really opens with its inverted mark. To add a missing one without a Spanish keyboard, a Mac gives ¿ with Option+Shift+? and ¡ with Option+1.
• Watch accent pairs that change meaning: si and sí, el and él, tu and tú, mas and más. Recognition picks the spelling from context and occasionally picks wrong.

Why Spanish lines run long

Spanish usually needs more words than English to say the same thing, so a translated Spanish line is often longer than the English it came from. The editor flags any line past 42 characters (it still wraps automatically) and any subtitle that needs more than 21 characters per second of reading.

Ways to bring a crowded line back under control:

• Cut what the picture already shows. "Como pueden ver aquí en la pantalla" can usually become "Como ven aquí".
• Prefer the short form: "para" instead of "con el fin de", "ahora" instead of "en este momento".
• Use Split at the playhead so a long sentence becomes two subtitles, each with its own timing.
• Give the line more time by dragging its end edge, if the next subtitle leaves room.

Translated subtitles are cut by text length, so their timing is approximate. Burning translated subtitles covers tidying the timing after translation, and text expansion in translation explains why the lengths grow.

Troubleshooting Spanish files and lines

• An imported SRT shows ñ or é as � or as pairs of odd symbols: the file was saved in an older encoding such as Windows-1252, and the editor reads subtitle files as UTF-8. Open it in a text editor, save it as UTF-8, and import again. Files exported from the editor are UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, which gives players that guess the encoding a clear hint.
• Two people in one subtitle: the AI doesn't mark speakers. Spanish subtitling traditionally opens each speaker's line with a dash; add those by hand.
• English brand names inside Spanish sentences: recognition may respell them by sound. Restore the brand's real spelling.
• Decimals: Spain and much of South America write 2,5 with a comma, while Mexico writes 2.5 with a point. Follow your audience's habit and keep it consistent.

More on encoding trouble is in subtitles showing strange characters.

Variations on the job

Spanish speech, English viewers. Choose English as the subtitle language and see English subtitles on a video, or let the Spanish to English video translator dub it.

English speech, a Spanish voice instead of text. The Spanish video translator produces a dubbed version.

Only a file, no new video. The Spanish subtitle generator stops at the SRT or VTT.

A Spanish transcript for an article or notes. Use Spanish video to text.

Two markets, two versions. Run AI once with Spanish (Latin America) and once with Spanish (Spain), export each SRT, and render two MP4s. Each AI run is charged on its own.

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