Step 1 — Set the project format
Edit → Captions → choose iTT, CEA-608, SRT, or ITT depending on your delivery. iTT is the modern Apple-native format; SRT is the universal one. Pick before importing — switching later is annoying.
Step 2 — Import your SRT
File → Import → Captions. Pick your .srt. Final Cut creates a Captions role and drops the cues into a track above your video.
Step 3 — Edit inline
Double-click a caption to edit the text. Drag the edges to retime. Option-C creates a new caption from the current playhead. Cmd-Shift-C cycles caption format mid-project.
Step 4 — Style and position
Inspector → Text. Font, size, color, stroke, background. Caption styles are saved per project — copy them to a Motion template if you want them across projects.
Step 5 — Export
Share → Master File → Roles → Captions. Toggle 'Embed captions in file' to bake them into the export, or 'Save Captions to' to export as a sidecar SRT or iTT. For social, embed; for broadcast / YouTube CC, sidecar.
Common gotchas
- FCP refuses to import SRT files with malformed first-cue timing. Open the file in a text editor and check that line 1 is `1` and line 2 is a valid timestamp.
- If your SRT timing is in 30fps but your project is 23.976, drift compounds. Run a frame-rate conversion before import.
- iTT preserves styling; SRT doesn't. If you need styled captions to survive export, use iTT internally and convert to SRT only at the final delivery step.