Subtitle Edit help is also available in: Polish
Mini FAQ
Q: Where is the delay tool?
A: Use
Show earlier/later in the
Synchronization menu. Shortcut is
Ctrl+Shift+A. It's a tool window, so you can keep it open while working - or checking subtitle preview in video player.
Q: Why can't SE change frame rate?
A: Well, it can. Check
Synchronization -> Change frame rateQ: Why can't SE split/append subtitles?
A: Try
Tools -> Split/append
Help index
Menu in main window
In the menu you can find many tools like change casing, split, append, spell check, synchronization, change frame rate, google translate, find, replace, remove text for hearing impaired, and much more!
You can import subtitles from DVD, vobsub, blu-ray sup - even vobsub inside Matroska files can be imported.
NOTE: Many tools are also available via right click in the list view.Subtitle/file formats
In the top menu you can choose format and encoding. The first dropdown list shows subtitle formats. SubRip (extension is ".srt") is
the most widely used format today, so it is recommended to save subtitles in this format.
Originally SubRip was a text only format, but in recent years html tags have been common. Especially the
italic and font tags are widely used. For a list of SubRip support in players check this out.
File encoding is auto detected in most cases. ANSI is the old, most common found format today, but it requires your
system to have a specific culture setting. UTF-8 is recommended for new subtitles, as it can handle non English
letters better than ANSI (UTF-8 subtitles will work on all computers no matter what culture settings a computer have), and can display other
symbols like music nodes. The only drawback of using UTF-8 is, that some older programs do not support UFT-8 and WinXP only has a few semi-unicode fonts (Lucida Sans Unicode, Time New Roman, Courier New).
If you have an ANSI file in another language than the current culture/language (or you have an invalid UTF/Unicode file) then you can use the menu
item: File -> Import subtitle with manual chosen encoding.
Import subtitle with manual chosen encoding with preview:
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Framerate
Frame rate is no longer displayed by default, but you can enable it via the menu Options -> Settings: Toolbar: Show frame rate in toolbar.
Frame rate is used when converting between subtitle formats based on frames and formats based on time.
SubRip is based on time. MicroDvd (widely used 7-9 years ago) is based on frames.
Subtitles based on time is preferred as videos may not have a constant frame rate - which makes
working with subtitles based on frames not very flexible at all.
To change the frame rate use Synchronization -> Change frame rate - or use one of the other synchronizations tools.
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Subtitle view - List view or source view
There are two ways of looking at a subtitle - list view or source view.
 | This is how the subtitle file actually looks - different for all formats.
You can edit text and time codes here, but be careful - it's also easy to mess things
up.
You can make Subtitle Edit start in Source view under Settings.
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The list view gives an excellent overview of the subtitle - the same for all formats.
You can edit text and time codes here, delete and insert lines easily.
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It is also possible to select several lines and use tools like Google translate or
Visual sync on the selected lines.
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The main window can show video and/or wave form. Video controls can even be un-docked - nice if you have two monitors!
The horizontal/vertical red lines shows where you can resize inside the main window (via splitters).
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It's now possible to edit both new translation and original subtitle at the same time. Default, the original is read-only, but you can change that in Options -> Settings:General:Allow edit of original subtitle.
Shortcuts: Ctrl+U will toggle original subtitle. Ctrl+Shift+U will switch translated / original subtitle.
When editing both original and translated subtitle, changing start time/duration/deleting/inserting will affect both subtitles!
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Search
You can search by pressing Ctrl+F (F3 is find next). Regular expression search is available for nerds ;)
When using video and/or wave form three different modes (tabs) are available: Translate, Create, and Adjust.
Translate mode
In translate mode you can translate a subtitle from one language to another manually (or correct a machine
translated subtitle) while watching the video - and hearing the audio.
If "Auto repeat" is on, then the subtitle will be repeated x-times while you are typing in the correct text.
Use
Edit ->
Show original text (translator mode) to also display the original text.
Hint: Do use the <alt+arrow up/down> for going to previous/next subtitle.
Create mode
This is the place to create subtitle lines from scratch or manually adjust existing lines.
To create subtitle lines from scratch, pause the video file where the subtitle line should start and press the button
"Insert new subtitle at video pos". Then enter the text - duration is auto suggested. Now press the button "Play from
just before text" and if the text does not start exactly when the speech starts, then adjust "Start time" via the up/down
arrows until it does. The duration can be set via the button "Set end time" while the video is playing or via the "Duration up/down arrows.
To insert a subtitle right after the current line, press the Insert button (while the list view is focused).
You can also right click on the audio wave form or in the list view to insert/merge/split/delete lines.
Adjust mode
This is the place to adjust existing lines.
To adjust subtitle lines manually one by one starting from the top. Use the buttons "Set start and offset the rest" (F9) and "Set end & goto next" (F10).
Fine-tuning of "Start time" and "Duration" should be done by using the up/down arrows.
You can also right click on the audio wave form or in the list view to insert/merge/split/delete lines.
The wave form control makes it easy to see exactly where speech start/end.
With the right click menu, you can split/merge/delete subtitles.
To create a new paragraph, just select an empty area and right click.
Wave form mouse/keys usage:
- Mouse single click: Goto position
- Mouse double click on existing subtitle: Select clicked subtitle
- Mark area + right click on marked area: Prompt for add new paragraph / play current selection
- Mouse drag left/right border of subtitles (adjusting start or end time)
- Move/drag on middle of subtitle (adjusting both start and end time - but not duration)
- Mouse right click can either add new subtitle or perform delete/split/merge on existing subtitle line
- Mouse wheel scrolls waveform forward/back
- alt+arrow left/right moves video position
- alt+arrow up/down goes previous/next subtitle
- Numeric +/- will zoom in/out
- Mouse single click+Shift will set start for selected line (not moving end time)
- Mouse single click+Ctrl will set end for selected line (not moving start time)
- Mouse single click+Alt will set start for selected line (and keep duration)
- Mouse double click on non-paragraph - toggle play
- Mouse single click+Ctrl+Shift will set of start selected line + offset all lines after selected line (keeping durations)
Wave extraction
The extracting of wave data is done by
VLC media player 1.1.x, and then a very small wave file (with a VERY low samplerate) is generated
and saved in the "WaveForms" folder. If VLC for some reason fails to extract a wave file from the video, you can extract the wave file with some other tool and drop
that wave file on the waveform control, which will generate a small wave file (with a VERY low samplerate) in the "WaveForms" folder.
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Subtitle Edit offers several ways to synchronize subtitles.
Adjust all times (show earlier/later): This is useful if you for example need to show all texts 3 seconds earlier. Visual sync: Sync by matching start/end scene (more below). Point sync: This allows synchronization by using 2 or more points - sync point time
codes can be entered manually which makes it easy to use time codes from another subtitle already in sync. Change framerate: This makes it easy to match text from a video with one framerate to a video with another framerate (can also be done by visual sync or point sync). |
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Visual sync is a really easy way to synchronize a subtitle with a video file.
Match one of the first subtitle lines with the start scene. Then match one of the
last subtitle lines with the end scene. Press "Sync!" - and that's it :)
There are a few helper buttons which will help find the right place in the video where the
subtitle should start (just about where the first word comes out). The "Play 1 sec and back" button is a test button,
so you can easily very that the current position really is correct. Also check the Shortcuts.
In some cases a subtitle is impossible to synchronize because one or more scenes have been removed/added.
In these cases you can select a number of subtitles in the subtitle list view, right
click and choose Visual sync selected lines. This way you can adjust the subtitle in smaller parts.
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Subtitle Edit can translate a subtitle by using
Google translation,
Microsoft translator or
Multi Translator (only Swedish to Danish).
Google and Microsoft have translation between a lot of languages! It works fairly well, but translated subtitles will still
need manual correction (hint: use main window
translate mode).
Some subtitles have an lot of errors (often these subtitles are created using OCR software).
"Tools -> Fix common errors" provides an easy way to fix a lot of these errors.
The first window shows a list of actions to fix, just tick the check boxes you want fixed and click "Next".
Now you can choose which fixes to apply. Default all fixes are selected, so you must un-check the checkbox for fixes
you do not wish to apply.
The log tab gives an overview of what will be done - and what was not possible to fix.
The "Apply selected fixes" button applies the fixes.
Spell checkSpell check uses
Hunspell (which is also used by OpenOffice, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera).
Only English dictionary is included, but you can easily find more dictionaries via the toolbar menu
Spell check ->
Get dictionaries...!
If you download
Open Office 3.x dictionaries with the extension .oxt, then rename to .zip, and then unpack
the .dic file and the .aff file to the Subtitle Edit
Dictionary folder.
File -> Import/OCR... will ask for a file and then show
this window (if a VobSub subtitle contains more than one language, you will be prompted for language):
The list view now contains empty subtitle text lines with only timestamps. You can enter the text manually, but two (or three if you have MODI installed) better options exists:
- OCR via Tesseract 3 (recommended): Tesseract is an open source OCR engine.
You can find additional language data files at the Tesseract google code project.
This will work best if you also have spell check dictionaries.
- OCR via image compare: This option does not require any third party software installed, but it does require the user to manually
enter letters based on image parts.
"No of pixels is space" should be decreased if not all translated words are separated (like "wearefine."), and increased
if there are too many separations (like "w e ar e fi n e.").
Note: This does not work well with Blu-ray sup files!
- OCR via MODI: MODI is short for Microsoft Office Document Imaging. It's included with Microsoft Office Tools ("Microsoft Office \ Microsoft Office Tools" folder in the start menu).
This works a lot like Tesseract, but requires MS Office.
If you do have Microsoft Office installed but the MODI OCR is not available do try to run the MS Office setup again and make sure that MODI is selected in the setup program.
Select one of the OCR methods and click on the button "Start OCR".
When you are done just click "OK" and do remember that an OCR'ed subtitle most likely contains some errors that need correction.
| Window | Control | Shortcuts | Function |
| Main | * | F1 | Show this help file ;) |
| Main | * | Ctrl+F | Open the Find dialog |
| Main | * | F3 | Find next |
| Main | * | Ctrl+z | Show history/undo |
| Main | * | Ctrl+G | Goto subtitle number dialog |
| Main | * | Ctrl+L | Locates (scrolls to) first selected subtitle line in the subtitle list view |
| Main | * | Alt+Arrow up | Go one line up in subtitle list view |
| Main | * | Alt+Arrow down | Go one line down in subtitle list view |
| Main | * | Ctrl+U | Translator mode on/off |
| Main | * | Ctrl+Shift+U | Switch current subtitle with original subtitle |
| Main | * | Shift+Insert | Insert line before first selected line |
| Main | * | Alt+Insert | Insert line after before first selected line |
| - | - | - | - |
| Main | Subtitle list view | Ctrl+A | Select all lines |
| Main | Subtitle list view | Ctrl+D | Select only first selected line |
| Main | Subtitle list view | Ctrl+Shift+I | Inverse selection |
| Main | Subtitle list view | Delete | Delete selected lines |
| Main | Subtitle list view | Insert | Insert line after first selected line |
| Main | * | Ctrl+Shift+M (or Ctrl+K) | Merge selected lines |
| - | - | - | - |
| Main | video player/waveform | Alt+Arrow left | Go 0,5 second back in video |
| Main | video player/waveform | Alt+Arrow right | Go 0,5 second forward in video |
| Main | video player/waveform | Ctrl+Arrow left | Go 0,1 second back in video |
| Main | video player/waveform | Ctrl+Arrow right | Go 0,1 second forward in video |
| Main | video player/waveform | Ctrl+S | Pause video |
| Main | video player/waveform | Ctrl+P | Toggle play/pause video |
| Main | video player/waveform | F4 | Toggle position between end/start of current paragraph |
| Main | video player/waveform | F5 | Play current paragraph and stop right after |
| Main | video player/waveform | F6 | Go to start of current paragraph |
| Main | video player/waveform | F7 | Go 3 seconds back |
| Main | video player/waveform | F8 | Toggle play/pause |
| Main | video player/waveform | F9-F12 | Depend on mode (translate/create/adjust) |
| Main | video player/waveform | Alt+1 | Go to start position of current paragraph |
| Main | video player/waveform | Alt+2 | Go to end position of current paragraph |
| Main | video player/waveform | Alt+3 | Go to previous paragraph |
| Main | video player/waveform | Alt+4 | Go to next paragraph |
| Main | video player/waveform - Adjust mode | Ctrl+Space | Set start and offset the rest |
| Main | video player/waveform - Adjust mode | Shift+Space | Set end and go to next |
To translate SE first download
the English xml language file and save it to your
Subtitle Edit folder. Translate the content of all tags with an xml editor or just notepad. You can also use
Xml Content Translator!
Save your edited xml file as "Language.xml" in the same folder as SubtitleEdit.exe. In Options > Choose language,
you can now test your translation by choosing 'Language.xml' as language.
The 'CultureName' tag must be an
existing culture name.
Please do send any translations to me, so I can include them in Subtitle Edit - thx :)
Tip:
WinMerge is an excellent tool for comparing files.
If you and a few friends want to translate the same subtitle at the same time over the internet, then do try the "Networking" feature.
First load the subtitle you want translated (and optionally the original subtitle). Then choose "Start new session" in the "Networking" menu:
The "session key" is your subtitle id (can be any text you like) - other people need this in order to join (via menu Networking -> Join session) your session.
The "username" will be displayed when updating/inserting/deleting lines and in the chat window
The "webservice url" is small server program hosting the session (I initially developed this via direct p2p, but decided to use a webservice
instead, as it works much better with stuff like firewalls).
Source code for this webservice is available and should
make it easy to use your own server for hosting the networking session.
SE running in networking mode below. In the "User/action" column in the list view you can follow the translation progress - this might sparkle some synergistic effect!
Subtitle Edit can use VLC media player inside SE instead of DirectShow - go to
Options -> Settings -> Video player. If the VLC option is grayed out, then you probably
need to install VLC 1.1.x!
Often problems with the DirectShow video player in Subtitle Edit are caused by bad/conflicting/missing/old codecs (Codec packs are EVIL!).
The error might be something like System.Runtime.InteropServices.InvalidComObjectException and might mention QuartzTypeLib/QuartzPlayer.
My recommendation is to uninstall all codec packs (incl. K-lite), reboot, and then install
ffdshow tryouts for video/audio decoding and
Haali's matroska splitter for parsing the container formats Matroska(.mkv) and MP4.
Note that SE is a 32-bit application (unless you have specifically found a 64-bit version) and hence requires 32-bit codecs - even on win7 64-bit
If you have problems with a specific format/file try reading more about
Media Formats or try
GSpot.
To use the portable version with VLC, download VLC 1.1.x portable (like
vlc 1.1.7) and unpack to a sub folder in the SE dictory called "VLC".
Compiling your own version of Subtitle Edit is easy as pie!
If you don't have MS Visual Studio, then just download and install
MS Visual C# Express.
Then download the Subtitle Edit source code and open the "SubtitleEdit.csproj" file. Hit F5 - and that's it :)
Now you can change/add features you want or fix my bugs - if there were any ;)
Subtitle Edit has a few known problems!
| Problem | Solution |
| Crash while playing/loading/showing video with K-Lite installed | Uninstall K-lite and then install ffdshow tryouts for video/audio dedcoding and Haali's matroska splitter for parsing container formats Matroska(.mkv) and MP4.
Note that SE is a 32-bit application (unless you have specifically found a 64-bit version) and hence requires 32-bit codecs - even on win7 64-bit
Another option is to change video player to VLC in SE via Options->Settings: Video player! |
| Problems with unicode characters | Use font Lucida Sans Unicode - or upgrade your xp to Windows 7 (even Vista works better than XP here)
Also, you can use File -> Import subtitle with manual chosen encoding.
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| Spell check (NHunspell) crashes | Don't know if it still happens! You can change spell check to use MS Word in Options! |
Did you not find what you were looking for? Feel free to
email me.
Also, do check out
the Subtitle Edit Intro videos and the
Syncing Subtitles with Subtitle Edit tutorial by dny238!