.srt into normal titles (Premiere Pro 14.9 and earlier)

[David_JX]

Hi,

I'm quite new to Premiere Pro and have a question on working with .srt files.

First of all, I have a source video which I need to add subtitles. The subtitles are already in the .srt format, and I'm aware that I can use the captioning tool to make the video open captioned. However, there are elements I can only adjust when the text is a 'title' object. Is there anyway I can bring in or convert the .srt as 'titles' into Premiere Pro preferably having them all with the same position, font, color etc. or being able to batch edit the formatting?

Thank you in advance.

David

[Ann Bens]

There is no option to convert the srt file to open captions.

[David_JX]

I see.

Then, when not considering the open caption converting, is the any way I can make the .srt as title objects apart from manually making all of them?

Thank you for the reply!

[Ann Bens]

You have to convert outside Premiere.

[Mike Dziennik]

You can import .stl files as open captions so you would first need to find an application to convert a .srt to a .stl.

[Stan Jones]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/David+JX  wrote

...there are elements I can only adjust when the text is a 'title' object.

Trying to understand this. Can you give an example of what this might be? There is a fair bit of flexibility for formatting open captions.

There are scripts for After Effects that might help you here, but I wonder if it is necessary.

[David_JX]

Hi, Stan Jones, thank you for the help

Here is an example why I (think I) would need a text object.

<<First of all, I guess sharing a little background info could be helpful. (If it's too long, you can skip to the ' > ' symbol)

The purpose of open-captioning for me is to provide educational clips to variety of audiences especially with different preferred languages. The speaker's lecture will be interpreted simultaneously, but the videos will have to be translated into the target language. Since some of the videos by the speaker was not made by the speaker himself, it's impossible to edit the actual elements within the video.>>

There are quite many graphics on-screen, and as of now, the translated text for the graphic is included in the .srt file, which was made by one of the volunteers. >Now, since there are graphics with text on-screen, I need to adjust the position and the surrounding color for letters(?) for the translated texts individually, with much precision to make things look more natural (not just bottom-left, top-right, etc.).< In cases there are few on-screen elements, I could easily blank the actual caption for the time code and manually add a title. But since there are quite many of them it will be so good if I can get all the .srt contents right on the timeline as 'titles' and be able to just drag around the screen.

I hope this info helps you understand my situation, and would like to know a little about the scripts for After Effects you mentioned too

Thank you!

David.

[Stan Jones · Accepted solution]

Just thinking out loud; I have never done this.

My guess is that there is so much variation, you will need to make adjustments manually. Part of this is the need to change subtitles (or even if they were titles) in terms of background color and opacity as well as font color.

I first thought the graphics should be in a different file, but as you'll see below, perhaps this can work.

After Effects may not help much here, as you need to split the original subtitle text/timing between a graphics label and a narrative subtitle. I don't have a specific script/workflow in mind there; I just that I think there may be a script that would pull the text in. But you already have that in import to PR of your .srt.

One option is to use a program such as SubtitleEdit to modify the subtitles ahead of time.  Whether that is a savings or not depends on how many labels vs subtitles you really have. For example, you would open your .srt, bring in the video, and make decisions about duplicating or modifying individual subtitles, and let subtitle edit retime them all.

But I would first explore what it would take to do this in PR. First set them all to what you think will work best and produce the fewest changes for individual subtitles. For example, in the captions panel, select all subtitles, and set background to white (or whatever) and opacity to 30%. Use a font color that would work for most. Then position as bottom middle.

Hopefully the graphic label will be a first line and the narrative subtitle a second/third. But as I played with this, it may not matter. Narrative only subtitles should be mostly okay, except for ones where you need a different background color/font color.

For the mixed graphic/narrative, you select the graphic label only (in the captions panel) and position that line only where you want  it - differently from the narrative line. You can set background color and opacity and font color/size separately for each. Who knew! Do not use extra lines; rather than help to space, they produce a small, empty block (background color/opacity with no text).

You can use the 9 options grid to position, and, if you need adjustment from there, modify x,y to move as you wish.

I tested export from PR and queue to AME and the export burned them in correctly. (Some users have had problems with burn in to AME. That may have been with closed captions.)

Note that open captions (the default import of .srt) can only be burned in during export (see the Ccaptions tab in the export dialogue), or exported to .srt or .xml (timed text file) - selecting the .srt in the Project Panel and File -> Export -> Captions. But the .srt carries no position information; the .xml places my multi line subtitles as separate subtitles at the identical start and end time; I don't think either will work as a file to attach in a player. You can convert open captions to closed, but formatting options may be very different.

[David_JX]

Thank you so much for taking the time to find a solution and for the detailed answer!

It seems being able to modify x, y from top-left etc. and ability to have graphic/narrative separately will completely solve the problem of setting the exact position!

I'll also try out using SubtitleEdit before bring it into PR.

I'll follow your advice and post an update on how it works out in a few days time!

Thank you again for your help

[Stan Jones]

Great! Do let us know.

[Kevin-Monahan]

David JX,

What did you end up doing?

Thanks,

Kevin

[David_JX]

Hi Jones and Kevin,

I'm sorry for the really late update. I didn't even realize that a whole week has passed by!

Meanwhile, someone else used the studio laptop I'm currently using and got some malware on it...

I tried to do a factory reset... And that took some time before I was able to jump into the new method.

Finally into the point

Jones! Your advice worked! I was able to select the part which I wanted to be somewhere else other than the default bottom-middle and place it to the position I wanted using the x, y! It was great to be able to bring in the whole .srt file and edit only the position as needed, while saving time of manually copy & pasting the whole thing.

I'll never know how to thank you enough. I'm sure this will save so much time and effort spent of making, and matching the subtitles.

Thank you so much!

Best,

David

[Stan Jones]

Fantastic!

[helloliubin@gmail.com]

I made a app for importing SRT subtitles to Premiere as essential graphics titles. It's called Pr Titles and it's available on Mac App Store now. It will be available on Windows Store before Dec 2020. Hope this doesn't bother.

[Josiah Jeremiah the Third]

Hey I was just wondering if this app is still available? It would be an immense time saver for me if it was!!!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Josiah,

The captions workflow is very different since this post was written. Currently, there is no workflow for an .srt to titles workflow as of yet. You can make a feature request here.

Regards,
Kevin

[helloliubin@gmail.com]

This app is still available in Mac App Store. But unfortunately Adobe changed its decription method in Pr 2021. So Pr titles is only working with Pr 2020 or ealier. (Pr 2016~2020).