Subtitle Edit Help

 
Subtitle Edit help is also available in: Polish


Subtitle Edit Help





Subtitle Edit main window


Framerate

Framerate 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 6-8 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.


Subtitle/file formats

Subtitle format Here you can choose formats. 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 without taking two bytes for every letter like Unicode and does not require a specific culture setting
If you have an ANSI file in another language than the current culture/language (or you have an UTF/Unicode file with bad/missing BOM) then you can use the menu item: File -> Import subtitle with manual chosen encoding.


Adjust all times

Adjust all times A simple way to display subtitles later or earlier.
If the subtitle is 2 seconds behind just enter two seconds in the box and press "Show earlier".
For a more advanced and visual synchronization function check Visual sync.


Subtitle view - Listview or source view

There are two ways of looking at a subtitle - listview or source view.

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.

Listview
The listview gives an excellent overview of the subtitle - the same for all formats.
You can edit text and timecodes here, delete and insert lines easily.

Listview
It is also possible to select several lines and use tools like Google translate or Visual sync on the selected lines.


Search

You can search by pressing Ctrl+F (F3 is find next). Regular expression search is available for nerds ;)

search



Visual sync

Visual Sync controls
Synchronize button
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 syncronize because one or more scenes have been removed/added. In these cases you can select a number of subtitles in the subtitle listview, right click and choose Visual sync selected lines. This way you can adjust the subtitle in smaller parts.




Translation helper

Translation helper

With Translation helper 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.



Create/adjust lines

Create/adjust lines

This is the place 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.
You can also right click in the listview to insert/merge/delete lines.



Translation

Subtitle Edit can translate a subtitle by using Google translation or Multi Translater (only Swedish to Danish).
Google has translation between a lot of languages! It works fairly well, but translated subtitles will still need manual correction (hint: use Translation helper).

Create/add lines



Fix common errors


Create/add lines

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".


Create/add lines

Now you can choose which fixes to apply. Default all fixes are seleted, 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 check

Spell 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.
The .dic file and the .aff file should be saved in the Subtitle Edit Dictionary folder.

Note: If you find an Open Office 3.x dictionary file with the extention .oxt, just rename it to .zip and unpack the .dic file and the .aff file to the Subtitle Edit Dictionary folder.



Import/OCR VobSub (sub/idx) subtitles



File -> Import/OCR VobSub (sub/idx) subtitle... will ask for a .sub file and then show this window (if the VobSub subtitle file contains more than one language, you will be prompted for language):
Import VobSub (sub/idx) subtitles

The listview now contains empty subtitle text lines with only timestamps. You can enter the text manually, but two better options exists:
  • 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 is the easiest way to OCR a subtitle (OCR = Optical Character Recognition).
    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.
  • 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 seperated (like "wearefine."), and increaced if there are too many seperations (like "w e ar e fi n e.").
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.




Shortcuts


Window Control Shortcuts Function
Main*F1Show this help file ;)
Main*Ctrl+FOpen the Find dialog
Main*F3Find next
Main*Ctrl+GGoto subtitle number dialog
Main*Ctrl+LLocates (scrolls to) first selected subtitle line in the subtitle listview
Main*Alt+Arrow upGo one line up in subtitle listview
Main*Alt+Arrow downGo one line down in subtitle listview
MainSubtitle listviewCtrl+ASelect all lines
MainSubtitle listviewCtrl+DSelect only first selected line
MainSubtitle listviewCtrl+Shitf+IInverse selection
MainSubtitle listviewDeleteDelete selected lines
MainSubtitle listviewInsertInsert line after first selected line
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Visual sync*Alt+Arrow leftGo 0,5 second back in video
Visual sync*Alt+Arrow rightGo 0,5 second forward in video
Visual sync*Ctrl+Arrow leftGo 0,1 second back in video
Visual sync*Ctrl+Arrow rightGo 0,1 second forward in video
Visual sync*Ctrl+SPause video
Visual sync*Ctrl+PToggle play/pause video
Visual sync*Ctrl+OShow open video file dialog
Visual sync*Ctrl+FSearch in subtitle
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Translation helper*Alt+Arrow upGo one line up in subtitle listview
Translation helper*Alt+Arrow downGo one line down in subtitle listview
Translation helper*Ctrl+SPause video
Translation helper*Ctrl+PToggle play-current/pause video
Translation helper*Ctrl+OShow open video file dialog
Translation helper*Ctrl+GGoto subtitle number dialog
----
Create/add lines*Alt+Arrow upGo one line up in subtitle listview
Create/add lines*Alt+Arrow downGo one line down in subtitle listview
Create/add lines*Ctrl+SPause video
Create/add lines*Ctrl+PToggle play/pause video
Create/add lines*Ctrl+OShow open video file dialog
Create/add lines*Ctrl+GGoto subtitle number dialog




Translating Subtitle Edit to another language


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.



Compiling Subtitle Edit


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 ;)




Did you not find what you were looking for? Feel free to email me.

Also, do check out the Subtitle Edit Intro videos!

-= Help file is also available in Polish =-