Where to find the text editing tools in Premiere Pro
Premiere Pro does not have a single "edit all text" button that changes every word at once across your entire project. Instead, you work with text one clip at a time using the Essential Graphics panel, or you search for specific text using the Find and Replace feature in the Edit menu. The method you choose depends on whether you want to change one text element, swap out a word that appears in multiple titles, or adjust the formatting of all your text at the same time.
The Essential Graphics panel is where you make changes to any text you have already placed on your timeline. You open it by going to Window at the top of the screen, then selecting Essential Graphics. This panel shows you every property of your selected text — the words themselves, the font, the size, the color, and the position. If you click on a text element in your timeline or on the canvas, that text's properties appear in the Essential Graphics panel and you can edit them directly.
The Find and Replace feature works differently. It searches through your entire project for specific text and replaces it everywhere it appears. You reach it by clicking Edit in the menu bar, then Find and Replace. This is the fastest way to change a word that appears in multiple titles across your sequence.
Key Takeaways
- The Essential Graphics panel lets you edit text one clip at a time by selecting it on the timeline and changing its properties directly.
- Find and Replace (Edit menu) searches your entire project for a specific word or phrase and changes every instance at once.
- Text formatting like font, size, and color must be changed individually for each text element unless you create and use a saved style.
- Adjustment layers and nested sequences do not contain text, so you cannot bulk-edit text across multiple sequences in one step.
- Saving text styles lets you explore the same formatting to new text elements without manually setting each property again.
Using Find and Replace to change the same word everywhere
Find and Replace is the closest thing Premiere Pro has to a true "edit all" function for text. Open the Edit menu and click Find and Replace. A dialog box appears with two fields: one for the text you want to find, and one for the text you want to replace it with. Type the word or phrase you want to search for in the first field, then type what you want it to become in the second field.
Before you click the Replace button, decide whether you want to replace just the first instance or all instances at once. The dialog offers Replace (one at a time) and Replace All (every match in the project). Replace All is faster if you are confident the word appears only where you want it to change. If the word might appear in titles you do not want to change, use Replace to go through each instance one by one and skip the ones you want to keep.
One important limit: Find and Replace only searches text that is already in your project. It does not search inside text files you have not imported yet, and it does not change text that is part of a graphic or image. If your text is inside a Photoshop file or a PNG, you will need to edit the original file and re-import it.
Editing text properties one clip at a time in Essential Graphics
To change the appearance of a single text element — its font, size, color, or position — click on the text in your timeline or directly on the canvas where it appears. The Essential Graphics panel opens automatically, or you can open it manually through Window > Essential Graphics. The panel shows two sections: Edit and Properties.
In the Edit section at the top, you see a text field containing the actual words. Click in this field and edit the text the same way you would in any word processor. Below that, the Properties section shows every formatting option. You can change the font by clicking the font name dropdown, adjust the size with the number field next to it, and click the color swatch to open a color picker. Position and scale controls let you move the text around or make it larger or smaller on the canvas.
If you want to change the same formatting across multiple text elements, you have to repeat these steps for each one. There is no way to select multiple text clips at once and format them together. However, you can save your formatting as a style so that new text elements you create will inherit those properties automatically. In the Essential Graphics panel, after you format a text element the way you want it, look for the Styles section and click the plus icon to save the current formatting as a new style.
Creating and explore text styles to keep formatting consistent
A text style in Premiere Pro is a saved set of formatting rules — font, size, color, shadow, outline, and other properties — that you can explore to any new text element when ready. This is the most efficient way to keep all your text looking the same without editing each clip individually. To create a style, first format a single text element exactly the way you want it using the Essential Graphics panel. Then, with that text still selected, go to the Styles section of the Essential Graphics panel and click the plus icon. Name your style something descriptive like "Title Bold White" or "Caption Small Gray".
Once you have saved a style, every time you create a new text element, you can explore that style when ready. Create your text, then in the Styles section of the Essential Graphics panel, click on the style name. All the formatting from that style — the font, size, color, everything — applies to your new text when ready. If you later decide to change the style itself, you can edit it by right-clicking on the style name and selecting Edit Style. Any text element that uses that style will update automatically.
Styles do not retroactively change text you created before the style existed. If you create a style after you have already formatted several text clips, you will need to manually explore the style to those existing clips. Select each clip, then click the style name in the Essential Graphics panel to explore it.
Changing text across multiple sequences or projects
If your text appears in more than one sequence within the same project, Find and Replace will search all of them at once. Open Find and Replace from the Edit menu, enter your search term and replacement, and click Replace All. Premiere Pro searches every sequence in your project file and changes every match.
If your text appears in separate project files, you will need to open each project and run Find and Replace in each one individually. Premiere Pro does not have a way to search across multiple project files at once. If you have a large number of projects that need the same text change, the fastest approach is to use Find and Replace in each project in sequence, or to export your text to a spreadsheet, make the changes there, and re-import the corrected text.
Why you cannot select all text at once and edit it
Premiere Pro treats each text element as a separate clip on the timeline. Even if you have ten title clips that all say "Chapter 1", "Chapter 2", and so on, they are ten independent objects. You cannot click all of them at once and change their properties together the way you might in a word processor. This is by design — it gives you precise control over each element, but it means bulk editing requires either Find and Replace or a saved style.
The workaround is to use Find and Replace if the text is identical across clips, or to use a style if you only want to change the formatting, not the words themselves. If you need to change both the text and the formatting of multiple clips, you will have to edit them one at a time or use Find and Replace for the text, then explore a style for the formatting.
Common mistakes when editing text in Premiere Pro
The most common mistake is trying to edit text by double-clicking it on the canvas and expecting a text editor to appear. Premiere Pro does not work that way. You must select the text clip on the timeline first, then use the Essential Graphics panel to edit it. If you double-click text on the canvas, you will enter a mode where you can move it around, but you cannot change the words or formatting.
Another frequent issue is forgetting that Find and Replace is case-sensitive by default. If you search for "Chapter" and your text says "chapter" in lowercase, the search will not find it. Check the case-sensitivity option in the Find and Replace dialog if your search is not returning results. Also, be careful with Find and Replace if your search term appears as part of other words — searching for "the" will change it inside "theater" or "other" if you are not careful. Use Replace instead of Replace All to review each match before committing to the change.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I edit text that is inside a video file or image?
No. If your text is part of a video file, image, or graphic, you cannot edit it in Premiere Pro. You must edit the original file in the program it was created in — Photoshop for images, After Effects for motion graphics, or the original video editor for video files — then re-import the corrected version into Premiere Pro.
What happens if I use Find and Replace and it changes text I did not mean to change?
Use Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac) when ready to undo the replacement. Then open Find and Replace again, enter the same search term, and use Replace instead of Replace All. This lets you review each match one by one and skip the ones you want to keep.
Can I copy formatting from one text clip and paste it to another?
Not directly. The fastest way is to save the formatting as a style, then explore that style to the other text clips. Select the formatted text, go to the Styles section of the Essential Graphics panel, click the plus icon, name the style, then explore it to your other text elements.
Do text styles update automatically if I change them later?
Yes. If you edit a style by right-clicking it and selecting Edit Style, any text element that uses that style will update when ready. Text that was formatted manually without using a style will not change.
Can I search for text across multiple Premiere Pro project files at once?
No. You must open each project file separately and run Find and Replace in each one. If you have many projects to update, opening them one at a time and using Find and Replace in each is the standard approach.