Making captions appear on-screen all the time

[Anton23577219q77z]

I'm trying to make captions present on video even after the sentence is finished and before a new sentence is started. So text is always displayed in the video no matter what. 
To do that, I have to manually stretch text rectangles, so that when one rectangle finishes another begins immediately. No gaps. I was wondering if there's any way to do that automatically.

[Ann Bens]

If its just for being able to read the text use the TEXT panel.

[Anton23577219q77z]

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.
I'm exporting subtitles from Descript and when I export them to my project, words only appear on video when you can actually hear them. So they are pretty much accurate. But I want them to be present even when the sentence is finished and there is silence. Then, changed when a new sentence begins. I can edit those texts from the TEXT panel if that's what you meant, but it's not quite helpful with my issue.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Anton,

Sorry. In the Create Captions dialog box, you can make adjustments to allow no gap between captions. However, since the source of your captions is from another program, I cannot guarantee that it will work the same way. If there are no export capabilities in that program, you might have to trim the captions manually. You can request a feature for .srt import, or what have you. 

Thanks,
Kevin

[Stan Jones · Accepted solution]

Anton, I understand what you are trying to do. And you can do it by manually extending each preceding caption to the beginning of the next. And yes, you are right, that would be no fun!

But it is contrary to the common specifications for captions, and I do not see a function in third party apps (e.g. my favorite Subtitle Edit) that would adjust for this. They are all about the length of the gap, not eliminating it when there should be one.

Kevin, the "Gap between captions (frames)" is really a minimum. When there is no gap (i.e. a zero frame "gap"), PR makes the ending timecode the same as the next beginning timecode. Technically this is "overlapping" timecode, but Premiere Pro (and I think many other apps) are happy with it. But setting that to zero does not prevent PR from making gaps where there is, in fact, silence.

Anton, I assume you have an .srt file from Descriptive. I would do a search and replace/macro in something (e.g. notepad++) and change so that each ending timecode is made to equal the beginning timecode of the next caption. I would use searches for the blank line between captions (new caption + one line gets you to the beginning timecode of the next caption), two spaces after the "-->" in the caption before is the ending timecode to be replaced by that "beginning" timecode, repeat to end of file.

Then import that changed .srt to PR instead of the original.

Stan

[Luka5EFE · Accepted solution]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj3Cu3p1f8A Here's a solution for that 

[Stan Jones]

Thanks, Luka.

Sure enough. Aegisub has just the ticket.

Select all captions, then Timing -> Make Times Continous -> Change End.

I still did not find a comparable function in Subtitle Edit, but in looking for one, I see this:

Tools -> Adjust durations. Then add 20 seconds (the maximum allowed), and there is a note that "Display time will not overlap start time of next text."

Stan

[Beka5FFC]

@Luka5EFE and @Stan Jones, thank you so very much for your advice here.

I've downloaded Aegisub to make the timings of my subtitles continuous, and you have saved me hours of work across my upcoming projects. Thank you!!