How to make a lyric video on Canva: captions or line by line

Before you start

• The final master of the song, as a file. Captions only listens to the audio, so a version with the voice clearly in front works best.
• The official lyrics, in a text note. Whatever the tool hears, you will check it against them.
• A background: the cover art, the music video, or a few shots of the artist. Canva's media library also has stock footage.
• The shape of the design: horizontal 16:9 for YouTube, vertical 9:16 for Reels, TikTok and Shorts. All the sizes are in video sizes for TikTok, Reels and Shorts.

Option 1: Captions, step by step

These are the steps in Canva's Help Center for its editable Captions (checked 22 October 2026):

1. Create a video design and upload the song and the background. On desktop, wait until the upload finishes.
2. Go to Text → Dynamic text → Captions (or search for Captions in Apps), or select the clip and click Captions in the toolbar.
3. Pick a caption style pack. Canva lists more than 20, and says the packs are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Indonesian and German.
4. Click Edit next to Automatically detect spoken language and choose the language of the song. Canva says choosing it by hand improves recognition.
5. Click Generate captions. The words appear as a layer on the timeline, where you can edit the text and the timing.
6. To make the words move, select a caption and go to Animate: Canva lists Reveal, Highlight and Snake (it is rolling these out gradually).
7. Download as MP4. Canva says captions are only kept in video formats, not in images or PDFs.

Canva's own help explains the catch for songs: captions can fail when music overlaps with speech or the background is loud. Its suggestions are to lower the music, use Enhance voice in the audio tools, and regenerate, or to type the captions by hand. With a full mix, a sung vocal and backing vocals, plan on correcting a lot of lines.

Option 2: line by line with the Text tool

This is slower but gives you full control, and it is the way to go when Captions doesn't pick up the vocal:

1. Put the song and the background on the timeline.
2. Split the timeline where each line starts (play the song and pause on the first syllable).
3. Add a text box for each line and paste it from the official lyrics.
4. Trim each text box so it appears when the line is sung and disappears before the next one.
5. Give every line the same animation and position, so the video reads as one piece.

It takes a while for a whole song. Canva's music video page marks Beat Sync (cutting footage to the beat) and Magic Animate as Pro features (checked 22 October 2026); neither places the lyrics for you.

Fix it before you export

If you want each word to light up as it is sung, that is a karaoke style: you can do it in TONTRIA's karaoke and lyric video editor over a video you already have.

The faster way: from the song link

Canva suits you if you are already designing your cover and posts there and like to place every line. If what you need is the lyric video for a release, the TONTRIA lyric video maker starts from the Spotify or YouTube link: it brings the official cover, finds the synced lyrics or transcribes the singing, and renders it with one of the lyric video templates or over the music video. You review the lines, paste the official lyrics if you want, and export horizontal for YouTube or vertical for Reels and TikTok.

Doing it in another editor? The same steps for CapCut are in how to make a lyric video in CapCut. Not sure a lyric video is the right format for this song? Read lyric video vs. visualizer vs. music video.

Sources

checked October 22, 2026

• Canva Help Center: Generate and animate captions in Canva
• Canva: Free music video maker