The short answer
Drop a picture into the meme generator below, or paste one with Ctrl+V. Two captions appear on the picture: type the setup in Top text and the punchline in Bottom text. The letters are white capitals in Impact with a black outline, the look people expect from a meme. Pick JPG and press Download, and the meme is saved at the size of your picture, without any watermark or logo.
Need a label on something in the middle of the picture? Press Add text, type the words and drag the new box to the right spot. The round handle at its corner makes it bigger or smaller and the handle above it tilts it. Every caption follows the same font, size and colors, so the meme looks like one piece.
Try it here: Meme Generator
Open the full tool pageWhy meme text looks the way it does
The classic style started on early image boards and stuck because it works on any photo: white letters are readable on dark areas, the black outline keeps them readable on bright areas, and the narrow, heavy shape of Impact fits many words into one line. Capitals make the text look like a shout, which matches the tone of most jokes.
Impact comes with Windows and macOS, so the generator uses it on those systems. Many phones do not have it; there the closest bold font installed on the device is used, which looks slightly different. If you prefer another look, the Font list also offers sans serif, serif, condensed, rounded, monospace and handwritten styles, and All caps can be switched off for sentence style captions.
- Keep each caption under about ten words. Long text shrinks and becomes hard to read on a phone.
- Put the setup on top and the punchline at the bottom, so people read the joke in the right order.
- Leave faces visible: drag captions or extra boxes away from eyes and mouths.
- Use the outline color to match the mood, for example a dark red outline for a dramatic meme.
Comparison memes with panel layouts
Many popular formats compare two or four things: the old way and the new way, what you planned and what happened, levels from simple to clever. Instead of copying someone else's template, build the layout from your own pictures. Choose Layout in the generator, or start with one of the blank layouts below the drop area.
Two rows and Four rows place an image on the left and a white text panel on the right of each row. Side by side shows two images next to each other with a caption on each, and Grid of four shows four images with a caption on each. Click Add image on a panel to fill it. The picture is cropped from the center to fill the panel, so put the important part in the middle. Text in the white panels stays dark and plain so it can be read at a glance.
| Layout | Size in pixels | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| Single picture | Size of your image, up to 3000 on the long side | Classic top and bottom text |
| Two rows | 1200 x 1200 | Dislike and like, before and after |
| Four rows | 1200 x 1600 | Levels or steps that build up |
| Side by side | 1600 x 1000 | Expectation and reality |
| Grid of four | 1200 x 1200 | Four reactions or four options |
Sizes for social networks
Most apps show memes in a square or slightly tall frame. A picture close to 1:1 or 4:5 fills the screen on Instagram and in most chat apps, while very wide pictures look small in a feed. If your picture is far from these shapes, crop it first with the image cropper, then make the meme. The panel layouts are already square or tall and fit well everywhere.
JPG gives small files and is accepted everywhere, which makes it the right choice for photos. PNG keeps flat colors and lettering perfectly sharp; choose it for memes made from screenshots or drawings. Either way the text is drawn at the full resolution of the picture, so it does not get blurry when people zoom in.
Which pictures you may use
Famous meme pictures are photos, film stills and drawings that belong to someone. Sharing a meme as a joke is common, but using such pictures in advertising, on products or for a company account can break copyright or the rights of the people shown. That is why the generator does not include a collection of famous templates.
The safest choice is your own material: photos you took, screenshots of your own work, drawings you made, or images with a license that allows reuse. Ask before you use a photo of a friend or a colleague, and avoid making fun of people who did not choose to be public. Everything you do in the generator stays on your device, so private photos are not uploaded anywhere.
Common problems
If the text looks squeezed, it has hit the size limit: a caption may cover about a third of the picture, and longer text is made smaller to fit. Shorten it, or lower Text size and split it into an extra text box. If the letters look different on your phone, the phone does not have Impact and uses another bold font. If the downloaded meme looks small in a feed, the original picture was small; the generator does not invent extra pixels, but the image upscaler can enlarge a small picture before you add the text.