Editing a Title (.prtl) file

[Kelly Anderson]

Hello,

I'm trying to edit an exported title file from PPro.  The editing is working but when I import the file back into PPro, PPro crashes.

I've tried writing the file as UTF8 and UTF16.  Both crash PPro.  Any ideas?

thanks,

Kelly

Here's my code:

##########################################

var tapeType = "<TRString>TAPE TYPE</TRString>";

var theFile = File("/Users/ops.kanderson/Desktop/OnAir Slate.prtl");

theFile.open ("r");

var theText = theFile.read();

theFile.close();

theText = theText.replace (tapeType, "<TRString>GENERIC MASTER</TRString>");

var outFileName = 'kellySlateText1' + '.prtl';

var completeOutputPath = "/Users/ops.kanderson/Desktop/" + outFileName;

var outFile = new File(completeOutputPath);

if (outFile){

  outFile.encoding = "UTF8";  OR outFile.encoding = "UTF16";

  outFile.open("w", "TEXT", "????");

  outFile.write(theText);

  outFile.close();

}

##########################################

[Bruce Bullis]

What encoding does [your favorite text editor] say the .prtl is written with, BEFORE your changes?

[Kelly Anderson]

In my research, TextEdit says the file is UTF-16.  Textwrangler and BBEdit say UTF-16 Little Endian.  The Mac terminal says UTF-16 Little Endian.  So I changed my code to be UTF16LE and the file still crashes PPro.

if (outFile){

  outFile.encoding = "UTF16LE";

  outFile.open("w", "TEXT", "????");

  outFile.write(theText);

  outFile.close();

}

[Kelly Anderson]

I'm still working on this issue.

I still cannot export a .prtl then edit the file in a text editor and re-import the file into PPro without PPro crashing.

Are there any known specs for a .prtl file?

Is anyone working with this same workflow?

thanks,

Kelly

[Bruce Bullis · Accepted solution]

There are no specs; it's not a documented or supported format.

Best approach to automagically updating titles, today = do the titles in AE, and send AE ExtendScript from a PPro panel (yep, it's possible) to make those changes.

Getting/setting the text from PPro's titles is high on the API request list.

[Jerome Raim]

Despite the PRTL claiming to be UTF-16, I think it's actually encoded as UTF-8.

I managed to modify a PRTL in TextWrangler and import into Premiere without it crashing by:

Copy-pasting the XML data into an empty document. TextWrangler auto-detects it as UTF-16. I manually change it to UTF-8 (but do not touch the XML declaration  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16" ?>).

When I save this as a PRTL, TextWrangler warns me about "Document encoding mismatch." but I save it anyway.

Premiere imports the PRTL without crashing.