How to Add Subtitles in PowerDirector
Let AI transcribe them, fix the wording and timing, then style or export the lot.
Updated Aug. 28, 2026 · 5 min read
In a hurry? Use the subtitles quick guide instead.
Most people watch with the sound off, which makes subtitles less of a courtesy and more of a requirement. PowerDirector will transcribe them for you, and the work that is left is the work that always matters: fixing the words it got wrong and the timings it got close.
- Open the Subtitles room and click AI Speech to Text.
- Pick the audio source and language, then click Create.
- Click any line to fix the wording, and drag it on the timeline to fix the timing.
Steps to Add Subtitles
Prefer to watch? Here is the whole thing in under four minutes.
Three Ways In
The Subtitles room opens on a choice of three, and which one you want depends entirely on what you already have.
| Option | Use it when |
|---|---|
| AI Speech to Text | There is speech in the video and no transcript. This is the usual case. |
| Create Subtitles Manually | There is no speech to transcribe, or you are writing captions rather than transcribing. |
| Import Subtitles from File | You already have the text. It accepts SRT and TXT. |
Step 1: Let It Transcribe the Speech
Click AI Speech to Text and set two things: the Audio source, which can be a single track rather than everything at once, and the Language. Then Create.
Two checkboxes are worth a glance before you commit. Transcribe selected range only limits the job to a range you have marked, and Include punctuation in subtitles decides whether you get commas and full stops or a wall of words.
This one costs credits. Create carries a credit badge, and the dialog puts a Get Credits button next to it. The dialog also prints the total duration it is about to transcribe, so check that figure before you click: transcribing a whole timeline when you only needed one interview is an expensive way to find out.
Step 2: Fix the Words
Click any line in the list to edit it. Enter puts in a line break and Esc saves what you typed, which is worth committing to memory because clicking away is not the same thing.
The + beside a line adds the next subtitle after it, and the bin deletes one.
For a word that is wrong everywhere, which is usually a name or a product, use Find and Replace. Note that it gives you two buttons: Replace changes the one it has found, and Replace All is the one that does the whole file in a single go.
Step 3: Fix the Timing, and the Line Breaks
Three ways to move a subtitle: drag it along the timeline, drag its edge to change how long it holds, or click its Start Time in the list and type the value.
When the transcriber has run two sentences together, select the line and use Split subtitle. Its tooltip prints the shortcut, Ctrl + Enter, which is the one to learn if you are cleaning up a long transcript.
The reverse is Merge subtitles, and it has a shortcut of its own: Ctrl + Backspace. Hold Ctrl, click the lines you want joined, then merge.
Style Them
Switch the left panel from Subtitles to Properties for font, size, color, border and shadow, or take a ready-made look from the Preset row.
The checkbox at the bottom is the one that matters. With Apply to all subtitles ticked, what you change lands on every line, including where they sit in the preview window. Untick it and you are styling one line, which is occasionally what you want and usually not.
Export Them as a File
Open the ... menu and choose Export Subtitle. It offers two flavours: Export Without Style Formatting, which gives you a clean SRT, and Export with Additional SubRip Style Information, which carries your styling with it.
Take the plain one if the file is going to YouTube, where the platform does the styling and toggling for you. Take the styled one when the player you are targeting will honour it.
Haven't got PowerDirector yet? PowerDirector transcribes the subtitles for you, so the work left is the wording and the timing.
Download PowerDirector Free →