Add Text, Captions and Subtitles to a GIF

GIF compresses each row of pixels by finding repeated runs. Flat areas compress beautifully; sharp, high-contrast edges do not, and text is nothing but sharp high-contrast edges. A caption can add noticeably to a file that was otherwise small.

Two things help. Keep the text still — a caption that moves changes pixels in every frame, while a stationary one lets the encoder skip unchanged regions. And prefer a hard outline over a soft shadow: the shadow introduces a gradient of near-identical colours that eats palette slots and compresses badly.

They want opposite settings. Subtitles sit low, small, in one or two lines, and change with the dialogue — several text layers with adjacent frame ranges. Meme text sits at the top or bottom edge, large and bold with a heavy outline, and stays put for the whole loop.

For subtitles, watch that the text stays inside the frame after any crop or resize. Because sizing is proportional, the safest habit is to set your final output size first and then place captions.