Participant

Answered

Captions background alignment

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
December 13, 2017
26 replies
7292 views

The alignment of the captions is ways off.

And there are no way to correct this.

I tried with multiple different fonts.

Anybody that knows a fix?

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Correct answer Rameez_Khan

Hey AndersOfDenmark,

We're aware of this issue & working on a fix.

Thanks,

Rameez

B

Bobbbyyooo

Participant

Hey,

Would be nice to have a fix for this 😄
But in the meantime check this workaround:
when you are done with the subtitles, save your project and reimport the captions via Mediabrowser and name it _BG or something...
Then put the "_BG" under your original Caption... Make the text in the _BG Caption the same color as your background (in this case black) and the background opacity of your original captions to 0% now you can adjust the postion of your text via the effects panel 😄

(You have to reimport the captions via Mediabrowser, because a simple duplicate won´t work somehow)

Not sure if somone already posted it otherwise ignore this 😄

I´m working with the latest version 14.5.0

Stan Jones

Community Expert

Thanks for reporting back. Yes, edge settings can mess up quite a bit.

Busy today; will try to update my notes later today.

Stan

Stan Jones

Community Expert

The latest is actually now 14.0.3, but I don't think anything changed in captioning.

My quick test (using your sequence settings, a caption stream that matches, and creating captions in PR) does not reveal the problem of the background ending before the text on the right. No idea what to try there.

The text in an essential graphics can be adjusted, but it depends on the template used and whether that setting is exposed.

If I had to get high quality burned in captions, I would look at something like this:

http://scientificswede.blogspot.com/2012/07/importing-srt-subtitles-in-after-effects.html

Stan

S

Sportsmaker

Participating Frequently

Hi Stan.

I didn't have the latest version running (despite it being a 2020 version) so I updated to 14.0.3 but this did not cure the problem.

I checked the Fixed Issues list on Adobe's website and there was a big graphics, Motion Graphics Templates and Captions update in v14.0 but this issue is not mentioned. (Side point - the text is framed better vertically now without adjusting line spacing)

However I have discovered the problem and the cure. So long as you do not add an edge (aka stroke) to the text, the background frames the text correctly. Add an edge and the text expands up and right (it ignores the alignment selection) but the background doesn't adjust accordingly.

So there are two solutions. One is to not add an edge to the text (not really a problem with a background) or to add a number of spaces with the space bar after the text. How many depends on how long the line of text is.

I know this problem seems a bit niche to some but when you are working on a reality show, on location and an executive producer says "I can't hear that line, sub-title it" and you're on air in 20 minutes you want the system to work without "workarounds"!

Thanks for your advice in this and pushing me to find the answer.

Scott

Stan Jones

Community Expert

Thanks for the response. And I compliment your testing workflow before commiting to a project!

I'd like to be able to recreate what you are seeing.

What specific version of PR are you using? I am on 2020.0.2 Build 104.

What sequence settings?

What steps to get what you are seeing? Importing srt? Pasting text from Word to caption panel? etc. Open Captions I assume.

Thanks,

Stan

S

Sportsmaker

Participating Frequently

Hi Stan.

I'm on v14.0.1 which is the latest according to Creative Cloud.

I am building an Open Caption from scratch in a 1920x1080 25fps sequence. No pasting, just typing on the program monitor. Using quite a small font (Arial regular size 33) but any size or font shows the same issue.

Adjusting line spacing has no effect on the length of the background box.

If I use Essential Graphics and select Classic Broadcast Caption and adjust the font to match the "shape" that creates the background box works perfectly with the text centered within it. Decending text characters are still touching the edge of the box so that problem is not solved.

Stan Jones

Community Expert

sportsmaker,

There are many frustrations in PR captioning, but there have been fixes/improvements over recent versions, including the main topic of this thread. The topic here is the vertical positioning of the caption against the background block. This was improved by adding control over Line Spacing. Setting this to 100 instead of 50 will improve that problem.

The problem of the caption text moving beyond the background box is often due to sequence mismatch or line length editing oddities. In many cases, it is fixed when you a) recognize that captions do not word wrap but must be manually edited for multiple lines, b) use correct line lengths for your font sizes, c) select all captions and restore the correct position (bottom middle etc) and d) use workarounds, when needed, such as changing font size up (or down) and back again.

I believe that use of a third party tool (e.g. Subtitle Edit) is often helpful. For example, it can automate the process of adjusting line lengths.

For me a frequent deal breaker for professional output is caption text quality vs essential graphics text (or using After Effects).

Stan

S

Sportsmaker

Participating Frequently

Hi Stan, thanks for your reply.

I tried various font sizes and positioning but still had the overhanging text. The example is a single line caption.

I have created what I need using essential graphics and creating a Motion Graphics Template but pasting text onto the screen rather than a text box is not great.

As you say there are workarounds but with the amount of development Adobe are putting into Premiere and the length of time this has been an issue is an example of why large productions stick with Avid.

Stan Jones

Community Expert

I think the status is the same as the last info about "line spacing." The problem can be improved by setting line spacing to 100%. But it is not resolved.

Stan

S

Sportsmaker

Participating Frequently

Testing out Premiere to use in place of Avid for a big job that will involve lots of sub-titles. Encountered the same problem as above but with an even worse problem with open captions! On long captions the background doesn't extend to reach the last character in the sentance. This is on v14.0.1 - so February 2020!

Unfortunately this makes Premiere a non-starter for this project. In Media Composer you can adjust the borders of the background and just save it as a quick template. Adobe please spend a bit of R&D on this.

Alessandro Ugo

Known Participant

Hi, any news? It's been years and this issue is still there....

BMcCarty

Known Participant

I want to report back that I found a setting that makes the uneven spacing a little less noticeable, but does not eliminate the issue.

Open the "Captions" window, and click the "Import Settings" button in the lower left of the window.

Under "Alignment Settings", set "Line Spacing" to 100%.

This moves the caption text up so it isn't bottom justified to the background. It doesn't completely center the text in the background, but it's a bit of an improvement. Please see the settings image and the results below.

M

martine9286690

Participant

I found this comment on another site - and it saved my life and hopefull others as well.

"If you add a crop effect onto the subtitles, you can then crop the top of the box so the text looks centered in the background box. This is the best way I found to get around this until they fix it."

I am now able to go to sleep to night! haha

jarvis_ballistic

Participant

Thanks for this workaround.

BMcCarty

Known Participant

Same problem, and still no fix. The captions are always bottom justified against the background. And yes, I am running the latest version of Premiere. When will this problem be corrected?