<p>For simple filterchains, where one filter operates upon the output of an earlier filter, no input pads (like <code>[0:v]</code>) should be used. Also, there is an errant colon at the end of the pad filter. It should be a comma instead, so</p>
<pre><code>-vf 'pad=ceil(iw/2)*2:ceil(ih/2)*2,drawtext=text=&quot;hello&quot;:fontsize=90:x=20:y=20:fontcolor=white@0.2'
</code></pre>
<p>In drawtext, you may need to specify a font if fontconfig is not available on your system.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-05T06:55:12.843Z
thanks it worked great
madiha bout
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-05T05:09:00.407Z
2020-08-05T05:09:00.407Z
Gyan
<p>hi im trying to add text to live video stream but i keep getting error with my command, i already tried <code>-filter_complex</code> but no success</p>
<p><code>ffmpeg -loop 1 -i img1.jpg -vf 'pad=ceil(iw/2)*2:ceil(ih/2)*2:[0:v]drawtext='text=hello:fontsize=90:x=20:y=20:fontcolor=white@0.2'' -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -x264opts keyint=40 -acodec aac -strict -2 -f flv rtmp://localhost/hls/test -y -stats -report</code></p>
<p>the error i get is</p>
<p><code>Unable to parse graph description substring: &quot;drawtext=text=freedome:fontsize=90:x=20:y=20:fontcolor=white@0.2&quot;</code></p>

<ffmpeg>
drawtext ffmpeg 'Unable to parse graph description substring'
madiha bout
# drawtext ffmpeg 'Unable to parse graph description substring'

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-08-04)

hi im trying to add text to live video stream but i keep getting error with my command, i already tried `-filter_complex` but no success

`ffmpeg -loop 1 -i img1.jpg -vf 'pad=ceil(iw/2)*2:ceil(ih/2)*2:[0:v]drawtext='text=hello:fontsize=90:x=20:y=20:fontcolor=white@0.2'' -vcodec libx264 -vprofile baseline -x264opts keyint=40 -acodec aac -strict -2 -f flv rtmp://localhost/hls/test -y -stats -report`

the error i get is

`Unable to parse graph description substring: "drawtext=text=freedome:fontsize=90:x=20:y=20:fontcolor=white@0.2"`

**Tags:** ffmpeg


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2020-08-05. Score: 0 | Accepted answer

For simple filterchains, where one filter operates upon the output of an earlier filter, no input pads (like [0:v]) should be used. Also, there is an errant colon at the end of the pad filter. It should be a comma instead, so
-vf 'pad=ceil(iw/2)*2:ceil(ih/2)*2,drawtext=text="hello":fontsize=90:x=20:y=20:fontcolor=white@0.2'

In drawtext, you may need to specify a font if fontconfig is not available on your system.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: thanks it worked great  

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