How to make a meme in under a minute
A meme is a picture plus a caption that makes a point: a joke, a complaint everyone recognises, or a comparison. This generator gives you two ways to start:
- Your own picture. Click Use my own picture and the photo appears with two text boxes, top and bottom, in the classic white Impact-style font with a black outline.
- A template. Pick one of the 20 layouts, such as No / Yes, Two buttons or Tier list, and replace the sample text with yours.
Type in the text fields on the right and the preview updates as you type. Drag any text box on the picture to move it, click Add text for extra captions, and download a PNG or JPG. There is no watermark, no account and no upload: the meme is drawn on a canvas inside your browser.
The classic meme style, explained
The look most people mean by “meme text” goes back to the image macros of the 2000s:
- Font: Impact, a heavy, condensed sans-serif that came with Windows. It stays readable even when small.
- Colour: white letters with a thick black outline, so the text is legible on any photo, light or dark.
- Capitals: all upper case.
- Position: one line at the top setting up the joke, one at the bottom delivering it.
This tool uses Impact when your device has it (Windows and macOS do) and falls back to a similar heavy font on phones that do not. The outline is drawn with rounded joins, about a seventh of the letter height thick, which keeps letters crisp instead of spiky.
Modern style: newer memes often put the caption above the picture in plain black Arial on a white band. Use the Caption above photo template for that, then upload your picture into its photo space.
Text that always fits
Every text box has a maximum font size. If your caption is longer than the box, the text wraps onto more lines and then shrinks step by step until it fits, so words never spill off the edge or get cut off. To keep long captions big, make the box taller or wider with the sliders, or raise the maximum size. Line breaks you type are kept, which is how the Nobody: / Me: format lines up.
The 20 templates
All templates were drawn for this site in code, so they are free to use and contain no copyrighted photos or characters. They cover the meme formats people search for:
| Template | Format | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| No / Yes | Rejecting one thing, approving another | Preferences, before and after a better way |
| Two buttons | A hard choice between two options | Dilemmas |
| Levels of enlightenment | Four rising levels, the last one glowing | Escalating ideas, ironic “big brain” takes |
| Bell curve | The beginner and the expert agree; the middle overthinks | Tech support, life advice |
| Expectation vs reality | Two side-by-side panels | Plans versus outcomes |
| Change my mind sign | A bold claim on a sign | Opinions and debates |
| Scroll of truth | An unwelcome truth on a scroll | Honest admissions |
| Tier list | S to D rows | Ranking anything |
| Starter pack | Four items that define a type of person | Stereotypes, hobbies, jobs |
| Venn diagram, pie chart, bar chart | Fake data | Office humour, statistics jokes |
| Four-panel comic | A short story in four beats | Plans that fall apart |
| Motivational poster, Caption above photo | Frames for your own picture | Poster-style and modern captions |
| Warning sign, Before / after, Nobody: / Me:, classic black and white | Text-first memes | When the words are the joke |
The Motivational poster and Caption above photo templates have a photo space: upload a picture and it fills that space, cropped to fit.
Worked example: a classic photo meme
You have a photo of your cat sitting on your laptop keyboard.
- Click Use my own picture and choose the photo. It is scaled to at most 1,200 pixels on the long side, a good size for social media.
- Top text:
WHEN YOU SAY YOU WILL WORK FROM HOME. Bottom text:MANAGEMENT HAS OTHER PLANS. - The top caption is long, so it wraps to two lines and shrinks slightly to stay inside its box.
- Download PNG for sharp text, or JPG for a smaller file to send in chat apps.
Tips for memes that work
- Short beats long. The best captions are under ten words per line. If you need a paragraph, it is a post, not a meme.
- Leave the face visible. Move text boxes so captions do not cover the expression that makes the joke.
- Use PNG for text-heavy memes. JPG compression can blur thin letters; PNG keeps them crisp.
- Mirror a photo so the subject faces the text with Flip Image, or crop out distractions with Crop Image.
- Small or blurry source photo? Enlarge it first with the Image Upscaler.
- Make it move: create two or three memes and combine them with the GIF Maker.
- Sharing widely? Add your handle with Watermark Image, and shrink the file with Compress Image.
Copyright and respect
Use your own photos, photos you have permission to use, or the original templates here. Memes are sometimes covered by fair use (US) or fair dealing (UK and others) when they comment on or parody something, but that is decided case by case, and it rarely covers advertising. Do not use memes to mock private individuals, and remember that a photo of a stranger is still a real person. The tool processes everything on your device, so nothing you make is stored on our servers.