How to make a meme from your own photo, with top and bottom text

Open Meme generator, choose your photo, and type into Top text and Bottom text. The captions appear in white Impact-style capitals with a black outline, the classic look. Drag them where you want them and press Download; the file has nothing on it but your picture and your words.

Steps

1. Open Meme generator and drop in a photo, or click to choose one. JPG, PNG, WebP and most other images work; a GIF is used as a still of its first frame.
2. Type your captions into Top text and Bottom text. Leave one empty if you only need one line.
3. Drag a caption on the picture to move it. Add a text box adds more captions, up to six in all.
4. Set the style: Font (Impact, Anton or Sans), Text size, Text colour, Outline (None, Thin, Classic, Thick) and All capitals.
5. Under Canvas size, keep Original, tap a platform size, or choose Custom size.
6. Pick PNG or JPG, then press Download.

Inside the photo, or on bars

Where the text goes has two choices, and they suit different memes.

Inside photo is the classic format: words over the top and bottom of the image. It works when the photo has some quiet space, such as sky, a wall or a table, at the top and bottom.

Caption bars puts the text on solid bars above and below the photo instead, so nothing in the picture is covered. Turn on Bar on top, Bar at bottom or both, pick a Bar colour, and set Bar padding for the space around the words. Text on a bar turns black on a light bar and white on a dark one. This is the format to use when the joke depends on seeing the whole photo, such as a face or a screenshot.

Making the text readable

• Keep the outline on. The black outline is what makes white letters readable on any background. If you change the text colour, the outline switches between black and white to keep its contrast.
• Size by width. Text size runs from 4 to 20, measured as a share of the image width, so a caption looks the same on a small or large picture. Long words shrink to fit.
• Short lines read faster. Top and bottom text grow towards the middle of the picture, so a third line will start covering the subject.
• Font fallback. Impact comes with Windows and macOS. Where a device does not have it, the tool uses Anton, a free font in the same tall, narrow style, so the meme still looks right on a phone.

Sizes for where you will post it

On a fixed canvas, choose how the photo fills it: Fit shows the whole photo with background colour around it, Fill stretches it, and Crop to fill trims the edges. A small photo on a large canvas is enlarged to fit and can look soft.

JPG gives a smaller file for sharing photos. PNG, the default, keeps text edges crisp.

Why there are no templates

The tool has no library of famous meme images. Those pictures belong to their photographers and studios, so you start from a picture you have the right to use: your own photo, a screenshot of your own chat, a drawing.

Questions

Does the meme have a watermark?

No. The download has only your picture and your text, with no logo or corner stamp.

Is my photo uploaded to make the meme?

No. The meme is drawn in your browser, and the photo and your text stay on your device.

Where did my download go on my phone?

On some phones it lands in the Files or Downloads app rather than the photo library. Save it to Photos from there, or share it to a chat.

Can I put text anywhere, not just top and bottom?

Yes. Drag any caption, or add more text boxes. For text with any typeface, angle and emoji, use the photo editor.