Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
If you’re anything like me then you’ll need to add some errata notes to your videos. For this, I use a text overlay. This text overlay (called a ‘Title Clip’) could also be used as quick and dirty subtitles. But, usually for subtitles, you’d create a separate file so as not to ‘burn’ the subtitles into the video which this method does.
Adding Title Clip
The first thing you need to do is add a video file to one of the video lines. I’m using Video1 for my video.
In the Kdenlive menu, choose Project > Add Title Clip. A window will pop up which has a chequered background. The chequer board signifies transparency.
The outer (solid) red line is the boundary of your video. Anything hanging outside of this red line will not be seen at all. Keeping within the second (or middle) red line is safe. The first (thin) red line is your safety net to be absolutely sure nothing will get cut off. I usually ignore the two thin red lines.
Adding Text
Click the ‘Add Text’ button at the top left of the screen.
Now click somewhere on the chequered pattern and you’ll see the word ‘Text’ appear.
Before editing, make sure the Move icon is selected at the top left. It’s the icon beside the ‘Add Text’ one. Now, double-click the word ‘Text’ and it will become editable. Enter whatever you’d like. If ‘Add Text’ is chosen, then it will keep adding text when you click rather than editing.
NOTE: Kdenlive isn’t so good with its visual editing of text. By that I mean that you often won’t see a flashing cursor to show you that it’s in editing mode. It usually won’t show any cursor, so you’re not sure what you’re about to change. It’s a bit of a nuisance.
Color
To change the color of the text you first need to select it (it’ll have a dotted box around the text), then choose the color from the right-hand side of the window.
There’s a property called ‘Solid Color’. Click the box beside the option and choose a color.
Kdenlive has a good many tweaks for your text such as outlines, shadows, fonts, bold/italic, etc.. I won’t explain those as they’re self-explanatory and easy to use.
NOTE: you can animate ‘Title Clips’ but we’ll come to that after you’ve learned the basics.
When you’re happy with your chosen text click the OK button at the bottom right of the window.
Adding
Your text will now appear in the list of project files as ‘Title clip’. You can double-click the name to change it.
Drag it down from the Project Bin (top left panel) to, in my case, the Video2 line.
This is now where you find out if the color, size, and position of your title is correct, and readable.
I need to center, change the color, and enlarge the text on mine.
To edit the text again you double-click the text clip that’s in the Project Bin window (not the one you’ve dragged down to Video2).
That’s better!
Yes, you can animate text and have your titles fade in, and we’ll cover that next month.