How to Add Text to a Photo Free (No Watermark)

To add text to a photo, open our free meme generator, choose your picture, pick Caption above for a clean line of text on a white band, or Text on the picture for bold outlined words over the image, type your words, and click Make meme to download a JPG. Despite the name, it works for any captioned photo: a quote, a label, a "save the date". There's no watermark, and the photo never leaves your device.

This guide is about everyday captions rather than jokes. If you're here for memes, how to make a meme is the better read.

Which layout suits your text

The tool has two layouts, and they suit different jobs:

Layout	What you get	Good for
Caption above	Black text on a white band added above the photo. The photo itself isn't covered.	Quotes, explanations, "before" labels, announcements, anything longer than a few words
Text on the picture	Big letters at the top and/or bottom of the photo, white with a black outline or black with a white outline	Short punchy titles, a name, a date, a one-word label

Caption above is the safer choice for most real-life uses. The text always sits on plain white, so it's readable whatever the photo looks like, and nothing important in the picture gets hidden.

Step by step

1. Open the free meme generator and click Choose a picture (JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF, up to 30 MB). There's also Or start with a blank square if you just want text on a white square.
2. Under Layout, pick Caption above or Text on the picture.
3. Untick ALL CAPITALS if you want normal sentence case. It's on by default because that's the meme style, but quotes and invitations usually read better without it.
4. Type your text:
   • In Caption above, use Caption and, if you like, Second line (optional), which appears on its own line underneath.
   • In Text on the picture, use Top text and Bottom text.
5. Press Enter inside a box to start a new line exactly where you want one. Otherwise lines wrap on their own.
6. Adjust Text size (50% to 150%). Long text shrinks automatically to fit, and the slider sets how big it's allowed to be.
7. For Text on the picture, choose Text colour: White, black outline or Black, white outline.
8. Click Make meme, then Download meme.

The preview updates as you type, so you can see line breaks and sizes before you save.

Ideas that work well

• A quote on a photo. Caption above, ALL CAPITALS off, the quote in Caption and the author's name in the second line.
• A labelled photo. "Kitchen, before" and "Kitchen, after" as two separate images, then combine them with the free collage maker. Our guide to before-and-after photos shows the layout.
• A simple invite. A photo of the venue or the couple with "Save the date" on top and the date at the bottom, Text on the picture, white with a black outline.
• A notice for a group chat. Start with the blank square, choose Text on the picture with Black, white outline, and put "Society meeting" on top and "Sunday 10 am, clubhouse" at the bottom. Quick and readable on a phone.
• A product or item label. A photo of something you're selling with the price and size as a caption above, so buyers see it in the preview.

Getting text that's easy to read

• Keep it short. Each box takes up to 200 characters, but a photo caption is read in a second or two. One clear sentence beats three.
• Pick a photo with space. For Text on the picture, top and bottom text sits over the top and bottom of the image. A photo with sky or a plain floor there reads far better than a busy crowd.
• Use contrast. White text with a black outline works on most photos. On a very bright photo (snow, a white wall), switch to black with a white outline.
• Crop first. If the subject is small in the frame, crop in tight with the free image cropper before adding text, so the words don't fight the background for space. A square or 4:5 crop suits most social feeds.
• Edit the photo first. Brightness, colour or a black-and-white look should be done with the free photo filters before you add text. Then the caption stays crisp black or white.

What the tool doesn't do

It's built for clear, quick captions, so a few things are fixed:

• One typeface: a bold, condensed style (the classic meme look). There's no font menu.
• Text is centred. You can't drag it to a corner or rotate it.
• Colours are black and white only.
• The download is always a JPG. Very large photos are scaled so the longest side is 2,000 pixels, which is plenty for phones and social media.

If you need fancy lettering for a bio or a post rather than on the photo itself, the fancy font generator makes copy-and-paste styled text.

Sharing and file size

The finished JPG is at most 2,000 pixels on its long side, and most come out fine for WhatsApp, Instagram or email. If a site needs it smaller, run it through the free image compressor. For exact sizes per platform, see social media image sizes.

Add your text now

Open the free meme generator, choose a photo, pick Caption above or Text on the picture, and download your captioned image. It's free, with no watermark and no account.