How to Add Text to a TikTok Slideshow That Stays Sharp

Text carries most TikTok slideshows. A viewer may have the sound off, so the words on each slide are the message. This guide covers the two ways to add text, then the size, contrast and placement choices that keep it sharp and readable on a phone.

Key Takeaways

• TikTok's editor can add text to photos. It suits a few words on a slide or two.
• Text placed into the image before upload gives you full control of font, size and position.
• Export slides at 1080x1920 so nothing is enlarged on the phone.
• Set headlines large and keep body text short. One point per slide.
• Keep text clear of the buttons on the right, the caption at the bottom and the tabs at the top.

What Are the Two Ways to Add Text to a TikTok Slideshow?

TikTok's help page on making a post (checked on 2026-10-30) says that after you select your photos and tap Next, you can add a filter, sound, text or stickers, or crop the photos. That is the first way. The second is to put the text into each image before you upload it, in a design tool or a slideshow maker.

For a text-led slideshow, put the text in the image. Matching size and position across eight slides by hand in the app is slow, and small differences show when viewers swipe.

What Size Should Each Slide Be?

Make each slide 1080x1920 pixels, a 9:16 frame that fills a phone screen. TikTok does not publish a help page on photo quality for photo posts. Its developer documentation (checked on 2026-10-30) lists JPEG or WebP images up to 1080p and 20 MB each for posts made through its API, which is a useful upper bound.

These are the sizes Wavegrain exports, as set in its code on 2026-10-30:

For a TikTok photo post, use the 1080x1920 TikTok output. The other sizes are for Instagram and other feeds.

Why Does Slideshow Text Look Blurry?

Three common causes of soft text:

1. The slide is smaller than the screen. A slide exported at 540 pixels wide is enlarged to fill the phone, and the letters soften. Export at 1080x1920.
2. The text is too small. Thin strokes on small letters break up when an image is compressed. Use a larger size and a font with solid strokes.
3. The text sits on a busy part of the photo. Leaves, patterns and bright highlights behind letters make edges hard to read, even when the pixels are sharp.

Screenshots of text from other apps are a fourth cause. A screenshot has the resolution of the screen it came from, and enlarging it later makes it soft.

How Big Should Slideshow Text Be?

TikTok does not publish a minimum text size. As a working rule on a 1080x1920 slide, Wavegrain does not shrink headlines below 48 pixels or body text below 32 pixels. A short hook can and should be much larger than that minimum.

The real limit is the number of words. A headline of six to eight words and at most one supporting line fit at a readable size. If a slide needs more, split it into two slides or move the detail to the caption.

How Do You Make Text Stand Off the Photo?

White text on a pale wall, or black text on a dark sofa, can fail even at a large size. Check each slide on its own, because the background changes from slide to slide.

When a photo is too busy or too mixed for any text colour, add a backing:

• a solid or semi-transparent box behind the text,
• an outline or shadow on the letters,
• or a gradient that darkens one part of the photo.

When Wavegrain places the text, it checks the part of the photo under it. If no text colour reaches a contrast of 3:1 against that area, it adds a semi-transparent black plate behind the words. That 3:1 figure is the minimum the WCAG contrast guideline sets for large text (checked on 2026-10-30); it is our working threshold, not a TikTok rule.

Where Should Text Go on a TikTok Slide?

TikTok's interface covers parts of every post: the like, comment and share buttons on the right, the username, caption and sound at the bottom, and the tabs at the top. Text in those areas is partly hidden or competes with the buttons.

On a 1080x1920 slide, Wavegrain keeps text inside a box from 65 to 821 pixels across and 250 to 1459 pixels down. That box sits slightly left of centre, away from the right-side buttons. These are our working numbers from TikTok's layout, not an official TikTok specification, and the interface varies by device. The TikTok slideshow guide shows them on a real exported slide.

How Much Text Should Each Slide Have?

Sharp text that nobody reads does not help. Write the first slide as a hook: one short line that names the problem or the result. The carousel hooks guide has patterns for it. Then give each slide one point, in the same position and style, so the eye knows where to look after each swipe.

Put the rest in the caption: details, sources, links and hashtags. TikTok's photo post API reference (checked on 2026-10-30) allows a description of up to 4,000 characters for photo posts, so there is room.

How Does Wavegrain Handle Slide Text?

Wavegrain writes the slide text from your topic and places it on each slide within the TikTok text area above. In the editor, Preview as set to TikTok shows each slide with a mock TikTok interface over it, so you can see what the buttons would cover; the overlay is never part of the export. Before export it warns you when text sits outside the safe area, when platform controls may cover it, or when contrast is too low, and it will not export text that is clipped or overflows its box.

The export renders the text into each 1080x1920 PNG on our server, so the letters are drawn at full size rather than enlarged from a preview. You then upload the images as a photo post in the TikTok app.