Add text to an image

Sometimes a picture needs a few words: a date on a scanned receipt, a label on a product photo, a title for a slide, a short announcement for a group chat or a caption that explains what people are looking at. This tool lets you add as many text layers as you need to one image and place them by hand.

Your image stays in your browser while you edit; nothing is uploaded.

How to use it

1. Choose an image.
2. Add a text layer and type your text. Line breaks are allowed, so one layer can hold several lines.
3. Style the layer: font, size, color, alignment and letter case. The fonts are Grotesk, Condensed bold, Serif, Mono and a handwriting-like style.
4. Optionally add an outline (color and width) or a background box with adjustable opacity.
5. Drag the text on the preview with the mouse or your finger to position it. Add more layers the same way; select a layer to edit it again, or delete it.
6. Save the image as PNG or JPG. The output keeps the original resolution.

Making text readable on a photo

Photos are rarely a calm background. Sky, foliage and patterned walls make plain text hard to read, especially on a phone screen. A few habits help:

• Use contrast, not just color. White text with a dark outline reads on almost any photo. A thin outline is enough; a thick one makes letters look heavy.
• Add a background box for longer text. A dark box at 50–70% opacity behind white text keeps the photo visible while making sentences easy to follow.
• Size for the smallest screen. If the image will be seen in a chat or a feed, text that looks fine on your monitor may be tiny on a phone. Make headings larger than feels necessary.
• Keep away from edges. Platforms and printers crop a little. Leave a margin around text near the borders.
• Limit fonts. One font for the title and one for the details is plenty. Condensed bold works for short headlines, Serif for a calmer look, Mono for codes and numbers.

The handwriting-like font uses the cursive font installed on your device, so it may look different on another computer while you edit. Once you save, the text becomes part of the image pixels and looks the same everywhere.

PNG or JPG?

PNG keeps text edges perfectly crisp and is the right choice for graphics, screenshots and images with large flat areas. Files are larger.

JPG is smaller and better for photos. Around sharp letters, JPG compression can leave faint smudges, mostly visible with small colored text on flat backgrounds.

If the final destination is a social network, prepare the image size first with the social media image resizer, then add your text so nothing gets cropped later.

Related tools

For the classic meme look with top and bottom captions, the meme generator is faster. To put the same text on many photos at once, such as a copyright line, use Add watermark, which works in batches.