How to Create Animated Captions in Premiere Pro with Transition Assistant
•5 min read•By Phantom Editor Team
How to Create Animated Captions in Premiere Pro with Transition Assistant
Creating modern, pop-up animated captions in Adobe Premiere Pro is actually quite hard. That's why the team at Phantom Editor decided to make a FREE tool to help create captions in Premiere called Transition Assistant.
Featured Snippet Summary: Standard Premiere Pro captions cannot have transitions applied directly. To create animated captions in Premiere Pro, you must transcribe your audio, upgrade captions to graphics, and use the Phantom Transition Assistant to "scatter" clips onto separate tracks. This allows you to apply native transitions in batch for smooth, word-by-word animation.
Check out our full video on how to create word-by-word captions in Premiere Pro using our tool.
Step 1: Transcribe your audio in Premiere
Right-click your Footage → Transcribe
You can also follow this official guide from Adobe on how to auto-transcribe video using speech-to-text.
Step 2: Create Captions from your Sequence
Open the Text Editor Panel once your video has been transcribed.
Click on the CC or Create Captions button to create captions.
Input your own settings for how you want your captions to look, then press Create Captions.
Step 3: Upgrade your captions to a Graphic
Highlight your selected captions in the timeline.
In Graphics & Titles, select Upgrade Caption to Graphic.
This will change your captions to a "graphic," allowing you to apply your own text effects, properties, and, more importantly, Transitions.
Step 4: Open Transition Assistant by Phantom
If you haven’t already, make sure to download and install the Phantom plugin. You can create a free account to get started.
Once installed, go to Transition Assistant on the sidebar of the Phantom Plugin.
(Video shows the scatter button function to offset every other clip)
Why 'Scatter' or offset every clip?
The reason why we want to offset every clip is to make sure that the transitions applied onto the clip don’t crossfade into the next graphic.
If we didn’t offset every clip, the transition would animate both in and out incorrectly between overlapping segments.
Here are two clips below showcasing why we need to 'scatter' the caption graphics:
Non-Scattered Clips with ‘typewriter’ transition:
When transition effects are applied to grouped captions, the animation behaves incorrectly. Notice how the transition animates in and then unintentionally reverses on exit.
Scattered Captions Graphics with applied effects:
Once each caption graphic is offset onto its own track, the transition behaves correctly. Notice how the animation enters smoothly and does not reverse on exit.
By separating the graphics, the transition is applied independently to each caption, ensuring consistent and predictable motion.
Step 6: Apply Transition Effects
We’re going to apply Premiere’s Native transitions to our selected clips in this step.
Select all your clips by dragging your mouse across the selected region.
In Transition Assistant, type in the effect you want to apply (note: this works with Premiere's default transitions, and not with your custom created presets).
Adjust the settings (Front/End of Clip, Duration, etc.).
Press Apply Transition to apply the effect to all selected clips instantly.
Step 7: Remove All Transition Effects
Not happy with the transition? In Transition Assistant, we’ve added a feature to remove all transitions in a single click!
Select the clips.
Select the settings for how you want to remove the transition (Front, Back, or Both).
Click Remove Transition.
Phantom Editor FAQ
Phantom Editor is an AI-powered plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro that reduces repetitive and time-consuming editing tasks to speed up post-production. It includes 13+ tools for captions, AI transcription, AI long-form clipping, podcast multi-cam editing, repeat removal, and more.
Phantom Editor is exclusively designed for Adobe Premiere Pro. It integrates directly into your Premiere Pro workspace and works seamlessly with your existing editing workflow. Maybe we'll add DaVinci Resolve to the mix in the future.
macOS (Apple Silicon M1 and newer) and Windows PCs. Not compatible with Intel-based Macs.
Yes, absolutely!
No, it is not.
Premiere Pro Version 2023 and above.
Yes, we support all Premiere Pro language versions.
The Phantom Plugin is a subscription. However, we do have some tools available as non-subscription one-time purchases.
Yes! Phantom Editor offers a 7-day free trial so you can test all the features before committing to a purchase.
Three tools are available for free in Phantom Editor:
Dopple Copy & Paste - Paste images directly from your clipboard into Premiere Pro
Silence Remover - Automatically detect and remove silent segments
Transition Assistant - Apply, remove, and change transition effects at scale
Our one-click installers should make it fairly simple to install. If you have any issues, you can also use the ZXP installer for a more robust install. Visit the Installation page on the Phantom Editor website for detailed installation instructions specific to your operating system and Premiere Pro version.
Phantom Editor works with Adobe Premiere Pro Version 2023 and above. It's compatible with macOS (Apple Silicon M1 and newer) and Windows PCs. For AI-powered tools like Banshee Captioner and Echoe Scribe, having adequate RAM and processing power will improve performance, especially for local AI transcription.
You can, however we only allow 1 license key to be active at a time.
We currently only allow 1 active session per license key.
For non-AI tools, yes. Some AI features require internet access to work.
Most features work offline. However, some AI-powered features require internet connectivity. Banshee Captioner offers unlimited local transcription using OpenAI Whisper models (no internet needed). Features like Charon Video Downloader and Phantom Stock Media require internet access.
Yes, we do! Users have access to different AI models and providers, but mostly we use Gemini!
Most of our tools that use AI are done via cloud processing. However, our Banshee Captioner tool does have local AI transcription using OpenAI Whisper.
Your video and audio files are not used for AI training. Files are temporarily uploaded to our AI provider only for processing, and your data remains secure and private at all times.
We will be adding a payment option for additional AI credits in the future. For the time being, email us and we'll work something out.
Wraith Multi-Cam is an intelligent multi-camera editing tool that automatically switches between up to 8 camera angles based on who's speaking. It can edit a 1-hour multi-cam podcast with 3 cameras and 2 speakers in approximately 1.5 minutes, making it perfect for podcasts, interviews, and panel discussions.
AI Repeat Removal (Beta) analyzes your audio sequence using AI to identify and remove repeated lines and mistakes. It scans your content, identifies the best positions to cut, and provides a transcription window where you can review, keep, remove, or add sections as needed.
Viral Spectre uses AI to automatically find viral moments in your long-form content, reframe footage for social media platforms, and cut clips based on your settings. It's similar to Opus Clips but built directly into Premiere Pro. It supports over 100 languages and is perfect for turning podcasts, YouTube videos, and live streams into short-form content for TikTok, Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
Banshee Captioner offers:
Unlimited AI transcription using local OpenAI Whisper models (no cloud processing required)
Support for 99+ languages including RTL languages (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.)
12 fully customizable caption presets with custom font support (more will be added per update)
Built-in transcription editor for text, timing, and line breaks
BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) support for AssemblyAI integration
Import/Export of both Premiere .json and .srt caption files
Both Banshee Captioner and Echoe Scribe support 99+ languages, including right-to-left (RTL) languages like Arabic and Hebrew. Viral Spectre supports over 100 different languages.
Yes! Banshee Captioner includes 12 fully customizable caption presets with support for custom fonts, allowing you to create social-media ready captions that match your brand style. More will be added per update.
Casper Folder Manager automatically imports new files the moment they're added to your chosen watch folder or subfolder. It mirrors your folder structure inside Premiere Pro, eliminating the need to manually import files one by one. You can save presets for project structures, making it ideal for reusing assets.
The Silence Remover automatically detects and removes or disables silent segments from your sequence. You have precise control with adjustable threshold, duration, and padding settings, and can view the audio waveform for visual confirmation.
Clip & Reframe makes it easy to cut sections of your sequence and reformat them into any aspect ratio (perfect for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts). It includes options to use Adobe's AI Auto Reframe to keep subjects in focus or manually adjust framing. It's non-destructive and preserves scale keyframes.
Current partners include Pexels, Giphy, Pixabay, and Unsplash. You can import high-quality stock footage directly into your Premiere Pro project with different quality options. More partners are coming soon.
Echoe Scribe is an AI transcription tool that transcribes selected sequences into accurate SRT captions. It offers unlimited local transcription using OpenAI Whisper, BYOK support for AssemblyAI, flexible caption reflow, and generates clean, export-ready SRT files.
To give you an idea, when we first launched on Oct 22nd, 2024, we had 8 tools. In 4 months after that, we added 5 new tools and pushed 1 update once a week.
