How do you add plain text?

Question

cez-_- Author

Level 1

2 points

How do you add plain text?

Hi all!

I have a very simple question, which is just what it says in the subject line of this topic.

How do I add plain text into iMovie? No fades, no slides, no nothing, just plain text?

From what I've been searching online, no one has answered this question, but then again, no one has asked it either.

All I could find was 1 yahoo thread with the question in which the answer was not clear at all.

I've been trying to find it myself by snooping around in iMovie, but as you might guess, unsuccessfully.

From snooping around I've come to draw the conclusion that you probably can't add plain text into iMovie via iMovie directly.

However, and idea I had was, if I create an image in, lets say Paint 2, with whatever plain text I want to add, and then insert it into the project. Will this have the same effect?

Can anyone please confirm this? I'm going crazy just looking for such a simple feature hehehe.

Thank you in advance!

//cez

iMovie '11, OS X Mavericks (10.9.1)

Posted on Feb 23, 2014 1:58 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Stellerby

Level 1

9 points

Apr 13, 2014 9:30 AM in response to braden85

This was not helpful at all. Did you even read his question? I have the same problem but all you did was link us to how to add regular titles. We know how to do that already. That is not what we are asking. I could've found that page by googling "HOW I ADD TEXT IMOVIE"

Can we add plain text to an iMovie project? No fading in and out, no animation, nothing. Just plain white text. It's not one of the title options so I am assuming no unless there is a way to turn off fading or something.

Reply

Answer 2

May 26, 2016 2:20 PM in response to cez-_-

Has anyone addressed this? I find it beyond mindboggling that I can't just put normal text on a movie with no nonsense attached to it.

Reply

Answer 3

Tobbe_82

Level 1

8 points

Apr 15, 2017 9:46 AM in response to nickaster

Hello,

did you get an answer to this? Or does Apple only have "fancy" ways of showing text with fading and stuff, which also is locked to specific places at the screen ? :/

(this may be a industrial country problem hehe)

Love T

Reply

Answer 4

braden85

Community Specialist

Feb 25, 2014 10:17 AM in response to cez-_-

Hey cez-_-!

Here is an article that will help you achieve this goal:

iMovie (2013): Add titles

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14702

Thanks for coming to the Apple Support Communities!

Regards,

Braden

Reply

Answer 5

Rich839

Level 8

47,206 points

Apr 15, 2017 5:47 PM in response to cez-_-

Hi,

You might find this thread to be helpful. Particularly, read my post in it.

subtitles again!

-- Rich

Reply

Answer 6

Apr 13, 2014 9:53 AM in response to cez-_-

hmm, well ... a video isn't meant for reading (resolution, compression, blabla). ...

so 'text' in a video should be very large in font, avoid tiny details, too much contrasts ... blabla again 😉

Advice using the Title-feature as 'text' isn't wrong.

plus, iMovie is no text-processor, you copy/paste larger amounts of letters into it.

If you need/want 'a page full of text' in iMovie, indeed you have to do the roundtrip by creating a 'picture' of your text-page, and insert that jpg to your Project.

The good news:

if your 'picture (=text page) is longer than the video screen, you can apply a nice Ken Burns effect to 'scroll' through the text ... in case, your audience reads as fast as you. 😁

bad news: max is 5:1 ratio of the 'page' ... so, no 'books' please ...

Aside Star Wars ("... in a galaxy far, far away from here"), you should avoid 'text' longer than a usual title.

(this answer/workaround isn't in the 'canned' replies of our hosts, you should forgive'em ... 😉 )

Reply

Answer 7

Apr 16, 2014 1:04 PM in response to Karsten Schlüter

A video isn't meant for reading? What about people who are deaf and need subtitles? Or captions/lyrics for a song? Doing that through YouTube is a hassle and looks tacky.

Reply

Answer 8

Apr 17, 2014 2:23 AM in response to Stellerby

Stellerby wrote:

A video isn't meant for reading? What about people who are deaf and need subtitles?

... subtitles. 😉 hmmmm...

My post was meant, and my understanding of the posts/complains above, was about longer texts. For titles, iMovie offers <sigh> 'titles'. For 'pages' of text, it doesn't offer a feature, due to 'video is no book'. imho.

just sharing my opinion, no need to discuss that academically.... workarounds mentioned above.

Reply