How to add text to a video without extra files — ffmpeg drawtext

A title, a timestamp, a label — plain text straight onto the frames.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "drawtext=text='Hello':fontsize=48:fontcolor=white:x=10:y=10" -c:a copy output.mp4

FFmpeg Cheatsheet one-page card — 28 commands that actually work — The full one-page card — FFmpeg Cheatsheet. Get the complete cheatsheet on GitHub