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Christine5C51
Participating Frequently
August 13, 2021
Question

Premiere 2021 Closed Caption text box position

  • August 13, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 2508 views

I have Premiere 15.4.0 and was trying to position the text box in the center, while the text is left justified. I can click the zone grid for bottom center placement but that renders the text to be centered. The zone grid and align text parameters are linked, so left justify also means a left horizontaly positioned text box. Adjusting the horizontal size of the text box is not a solution, as it means all text boxs have to be adjusted manually instead of a uniform default centered text box with left justifed text. This was possible in 14.0.3.

    2 replies

    Stan Jones
    Community Expert
    Stan JonesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 19, 2021

    Ok, I see it now! First, here's how you get what you want:

     

    In the "Align and Transform" section, select middle bottom "zone." 

    In the "Text" section, click the "Left Align Text" option.

    Result: Text box is centered; Text is left aligned.

    Note that you will not see this if your text spans the entire box. Also, this is easiest to see if you have 2 or more lines of text.

     

    But, as you have described, the default for for the bottom middle Zone is text center aligned. Every time you change the Zone, the text alignment changes to the default. You can make a feature request to add more flexibility:

    https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro

     

    If you create a Caption Track Style, it will respect the change. But that style will apply to all captions in the track. Meaning you can use only one zone.

     

    Stan

     

     

     

    C
    Christine5C51Author
    Participating Frequently
    August 21, 2021

    Hi Stan,

    Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, my Align and Transform section appears to be linked to the Text section. Meaning when I click on the bottom, middle "zone", then click left justify, the entire text box moves to the left. So, either this is a bug, or I am missing something here. I get there is more freedom with sizing and text options but the reality for us broadcast folks living in 608/708 land, is that CC has a standard default font and spacing. It makes it hard to negotiate screen space when I must look for a font that’s a close match to what the end CC will look like. It would be nice if there was a "default" CC font spacing option. Clients ask for product and/or legal not to be covered, so it is important to have the display font and spacing in Premiere closely match the output and I am finding that is not the case. If the 608/708 captions can be bound more closely to FCC guidelines would be more user friendly and remove the heavy manual editing that is required to get a quality consistent embedded 608/708.

    I uninstalled, then reinstalled Premiere but this did not fix the issue.

    This is what I see.

    Here is Zone set to bottom center:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Here is zone set to bottom center AND text set to left justify:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Do you see how the whole box moves left?

    Let me know if I am missing something here. Thank you again for your feedback.

     

    Christine

    Stan Jones
    Community Expert
    Stan JonesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 21, 2021

    Oops! I missed that you were using closed captions. And I can't test the important part right now (actual playback in a closed caption device). (It's my BIRTHDAY and I'm headed to our pod neighbors for a nice dinner!) 

     

    The "box" is the "bounding box" and it is not moving. It is just really big. So the box stays centered, but the left edge is where your left justified text is going.

     

    The quick test I can do it is to create a sequence with a 708 caption. Make them 3 lines each (easier to see alignment). Set one caption to bottom center and left alignment. Drag the bounding box so it is smaller. Make another caption bottom right and centered alignment - just so there's a check for whether there's a default at issue.

     

    Export mxf op1a with embed and set to import to PR. Preferences are set to import captions on import.

     

    The reimported file is "trying" to be correct, but the center zone/left justified leaves the third line RIGHT justified. But the real test is to play your exported file in an application that will use regular closed captioning display.

     

    More details about the exported/imported file: In the timeline, it treats it as one asset; I cannot select individual captions, or even the caption track by clicking in the timeline. I CAN select individual caption segments by clicking on them in the Program Monitor or the text panel. But that is when I discover that each "line" is treated as a separate layer in the EGP, and the justification is odd (and incorrect).

     

    Ugly... Bug report should be filed. Even if this doesn't work with closed caption standards, it should display correctly in PR and upon reimport.

     

    So if you haven't, test the output on a closed caption device. Let us know.

     

    Stan

     

     

    S
    Community Manager
    Sumeet Kumar ChoubeyCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    August 18, 2021

    Hi Christine5C51,

     

    We're sorry to hear about this. Are you experiencing this issue with any specific closed caption format or is it happening with all of them?

     

    Thanks,

    Sumeet

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