Is it possible to add stroke to text in ffmpeg?

Question

I would like to add black stroke to text in ffmpeg. Is it possible?

-c:v libx264 -vf "hue=h=0, drawtext=fontfile=../bin/RobotoCondensed-Bold.ttf:text='Hello.':fontcolor=white: fontsize=158: x=0+(w-text_w)/2: y=50+(h-text_h-line_h)/2" -c:a copy -shortest -pix_fmt yuv420p ../bin/ENG_01.mov

Answer 1

You can change border-color and width of border by using drawtext and adding these parameters

bordercolor=black:
borderw=5:

Your code will look

-c:v libx264 \
-vf "hue=h=0,\
  drawtext=fontfile=../bin/RobotoCondensed-Bold.ttf:\
   text='Hello.':\
   bordercolor=white:\
   borderw=5:\
   fontcolor=white:\
   fontsize=158:\
   x=0+(w-text_w)/2: y=50+(h-text_h-line_h)/2"\
 -c:a copy -shortest -pix_fmt yuv420p \
../bin/ENG_01.mov

Answer 2

It's easier to use the subtitles filter instead of drawtext to add a full stroke.

subtitles filter

ffmpeg will apply the Outline and OutlineColour options set in ASS files. Or you can manually set these in the ffmpeg command which is useful for other subtitle formats that don't support a stroke:

ffmpeg -i input -filter_complex "subtitles=your_subtitles_file.srt:force_style='Outline=5,OutlineColour=&H000000&'" output

From Advanced Substation Alpha Tags:

The color codes are given in hexadecimal in Blue Green Red order. Note that this is the opposite order of HTML color codes. Color codes must always start with &H and end with &. Default OutlineColour is black (&H000000&).

drawtext filter

Use the borderw and bordercolor options:

ffmpeg -i input -filter_complex "drawtext=text='drawtext stroke':fontsize=36:fontcolor=white:borderw=4:bordercolor=black:x=(w-text_w)/2:y=(h-text_h)/2" output

• bordercolor can accept hexadecimal values and you can also change the stroke opacity, such as with bordercolor=#[email protected].

• See the drawtext filter documentation for more info.