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George Patay
Participating Frequently
July 22, 2021
Question

Caption character length?

  • July 22, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 19661 views

I really like the new transcription and caption features.

Cudos on allowing durations up to 6 seconds.  

However, it appears that when I create a caption track from a sequence transcript, the maximum length in character is 42.   That is dismally short for many of our needs.  I don't see a way to increase that.  

Or am I missing something?  

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks.

 

 

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    2 replies

    2
    24329885d5a1
    Participant
    May 5, 2022

    I was just helping another user who was having the same issue.  They had a version 15.something, while mine was 22.something.   The limit of my captions is higher than 42.

    Stan Jones
    Community Expert
    Stan JonesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    May 5, 2022

    Correct. The character limit for "Subtitles" (the old Open Captions) in the "create captions" dialogue changed from a max of 42 to 72 with the PR 22 Release (22.0.0). This was never the max characters for subtitles, which depended on the font style and size and whether you maximized the horizontal size of the bounding box.

     

    Stan

     

     

     

    Stan Jones
    Community Expert
    Stan JonesCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 8, 2023

    Hi Stan! I selected 42 when I generated my captions, but now I want to change it. Is this possible? I don't see a way to do this in the Essential Graphics panel.


    I don't think you can change that setting after the fact. It is just used for the creation.

     

    You can create captions again, creating a new caption track. You'd lose any changes you've made. You could select your old track and "convert captions to graphics" (as of PR 23.1). Then you could see your new captions and your old captions (now graphics text) as the same time.

     

    If you want to keep the old caption track as captions also, duplicate it before you convert.

     

    Stan

     

    R Neil Haugen
    R Neil Haugen
    Legend
    July 22, 2021

    Depending on the format you choose and the screen formatting, there are limits.

     

    Some of the things like the formal closed-captions options do have specific character and placement limitations.

     

    Also, you can select for subtitles whether you want want or two lines, I even get three at times. And you can click on the Program monitor with those and actually manually set the size of the box the text will appear in ... within certain limitations, of course ...

     

    Neil

    Everyone's mileage always varies ...
    Matt Young14394008
    Matt Young14394008
    Legend
    July 22, 2021

    When I create a caption track from speech-to-text transcript in 15.4 here is what I'm experiencing:

     

    If I select maximum character length of 42 and then choose "double lines" at the bottom of the Create Captions dialog, then even if I merge many captions, I will get multiple lines of captions, some definitely longer than 42 characters, but the "Set Horizontal Size" slider in the essential graphics tab is not able to increase the length of the lines past where Premiere sets them.

     

    However, if I select maximum character length of 42 and then choose "single line", I can merge many captions and use the slider in the essential graphics tab to set my right margin, and it does then move excess text to a second line.

     

    So, it's counterintiutive, but at least there's a way to make it work as it did in the trial version.

     

    But what I can't get to work in the Create Captions dialog is setting a custom caption style!  https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/can-t-select-caption-style-in-premiere-pro-15-4/td-p/12193484

    G
    George PatayAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    July 22, 2021

    I tried the Double line option and it's definitely better because it puts more text on screen and makes them longer.

    But to have to then go an move things to a single line is rather tedious. 

    So that's a step in the right direction.  

    But really adjusting the character length to a longer length would be the best option. 

     

    And yes, selecting the inability to select a default style when creating appears to be a bug. But you can always apply a style after they are created.  2 clicks later.

     

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