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How to insert caption item / move multiple caption items? (Premiere Pro 14.9 and earlier)

Community Beginner ,
Mar 29, 2018 Mar 29, 2018

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Hi!
Imagine this situation, some movie is ready, including all captions. Then, out of nowhere, someone claims that a particular scene or clip is missing in the whole movie. Inserting the missing clip, adjusting the music can be done in just a few minutes. However, I was unable to figure out how to shift/move around multiple (closed) caption items. I can move single items by dragging them on the timeline, but how do I insert a caption item and shift all the following caption items to match the new time code of the modified video track? I was unable to figure out how I can select multiple items and move those along the time line together.

 

I'm sure there is a way to accoplish this, can someone please tell me how?

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Editing , Effects and Titles

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Beginner , Apr 10, 2018 Apr 10, 2018

Sorry but that's just botch. That way I'd have to deal with multiple tracks, copy & pasting contents between those is even more difficult.

To all those facing similar issues:

I ended up adding captions with the free tool Subtitle Edit. It even auto calculates the duration a single caption should be displayed. It was way faster and far more comfortable than Adobe's flimsy solution.

See:
Subtitle Edit

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Community Beginner ,
Mar 29, 2018 Mar 29, 2018

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I had a very similar issue occur not too long ago. From what I can ascertain - you can't. Which is a horrible tease and egregious oversight on Adobe's part. You can highlight multiple captions so you'd think you should be able to shift them around. You can even hold down modifier keys and see the cursor change icons to show a slide and ripple tool, but it does nothing.  If I run into anything good I will post it here.

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Adobe Employee ,
Mar 29, 2018 Mar 29, 2018

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Why can't you place a cut in the caption clip, drag over the remainder of the caption clip to make room, and then add a new caption clip to the sequence?

Start with this:

screenshot_1706.png

Add a cut and drag to the right:

screenshot_1707.png

Insert the new caption clip:

screenshot_1708.png

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 09, 2018 Sep 09, 2018

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How on earth do Adobe consider this a reasonable captioning workflow? Is there a better solution being developed?

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New Here ,
Jul 14, 2020 Jul 14, 2020

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because I need to export the cation and the time line will not come out right..... can you guys please deal with this problem in the next update.....

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 25, 2021 Jan 25, 2021

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This will NOT solve the problem. Do NOT do this. Here is why: the time code of the captions themselves won't change if you cut the caption track, it will only move them on the time line but their timecodes remain exactly the same as where you inserted them first. If you now try to export an .srt file for example all these timecodes to NOT match your timeline at all. Trying to insert/add this .srt file in any other player/software will just result in one big mess.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Apr 10, 2018 Apr 10, 2018

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Sorry but that's just botch. That way I'd have to deal with multiple tracks, copy & pasting contents between those is even more difficult.

To all those facing similar issues:

I ended up adding captions with the free tool Subtitle Edit. It even auto calculates the duration a single caption should be displayed. It was way faster and far more comfortable than Adobe's flimsy solution.

See:
Subtitle Edit

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 09, 2018 Sep 09, 2018

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I think I've got a fix for this. If you hold cmd/control while dragging out the end of a caption it ripple shifts all the captions after it. So you can do this for the size space you need then bring the one caption back down to size and insert the new captions in the space.

Voila!

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 09, 2018 Sep 09, 2018

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Word of warning, Premiere doesn't seem to like rendering any changes like this to captions. To make any changes take effect I'm having to save, quit and relaunch every time. Pretty fun.

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Participant ,
Feb 22, 2019 Feb 22, 2019

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this was super helpful, thank you!

Adobe, I would like to see this behavior work by default by dragging the end anchor of a caption; thereby making mass adjustments intuitive.

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Contributor ,
Dec 10, 2019 Dec 10, 2019

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This was EXACTLY what I needed. I was captioning a choir concert and then had to pull a song from the middle. That meant having to shift all of the end captions toward the beginning. I used your tip. I deleted the captions for the removed song, leaving a large hole in the captions. Then I created an empty caption to fill that length and Cid cmd/control drag to shorten it away and pulled all of the end captions to where I needed them.

Thank you!!

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New Here ,
Jul 14, 2020 Jul 14, 2020

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i actually need to shift all cations forwad because I got rid of some of the footage after putting in the captions.... errr any solution for that?

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Contributor ,
Jul 20, 2020 Jul 20, 2020

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Ths solution Felixvon suggested will work. I've done this before (just last week) with the problem you described.

Go to the caption right before where you need to make the insert.

Hold Command(Mac) or Control(PC) and drag the right end of your leading caption out far enough to make room for the inserted captions. This will shift everything to the right. The drag bracket should be yellow.

Then let go of the modifier key (Command or Control) and do a simple click and drag to move the right end of the leading caption back to where it needs to be. The drag bracket will be red.

You should now have a space in your captions to insert the needed captions.

Select the leading caption in the Caption editing pane and click the plus. That should add the next caption. Continue until you're done.

Or, if I misunderstood and you need to pull captions closer to the beginning,

Delete the captions you need to get rid of.

Extend the following caption into the space you want to get rid of.

Command(Mac) or Control(PC) click and drag the leading edge of the caption you just extended and you should be able to ripple shift or pull the captions closer to the beginning of your edit.

 

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New Here ,
Sep 02, 2020 Sep 02, 2020

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Hi,

 

Ive tried the CMD option suggested in this forum. Thankyou for that.

 

When dragging the caption a very small distance on the timeline (like 1-2 seconds), premier pro shoots it like 3 minutes away. Then trying to bring it back, same response.

The longer I drag it along the timeline - like 4 seconds - it will shoot it like 5 minutes away.

 

Ive tried every keyboard combination to assist but nothing.

 

Any thoughts? Pete

 

 

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Community Expert ,
Sep 03, 2020 Sep 03, 2020

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It is working correctly for me. I tried zooming in/out; moving a few frames; moving a few seconds. Moving a long ways. Turning snap on and off.

 

Does it always happen, or only sometimes? 

 

What specific dot version of PR are you running? But I have not seen a change in this for some time.

 

Stan

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Community Beginner ,
Jan 25, 2021 Jan 25, 2021

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Pete, we had the same problem. It seems to work better when you extend the captions track over the entire length of your media. However, this seems faulty at best. Perhaps the best solution for now is still to use a 3rd paryt plug-in/software.

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Participant ,
Sep 29, 2020 Sep 29, 2020

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Your response iss still solving problems two yearas later, so thanks for this! This should also be labeled as the correct answer in this thread. 

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 11, 2020 Nov 11, 2020

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I tried this today, all it did was drag the end of the caption I want to stretch to the very end of the caption clip, no matter where I actually dragged it. I could pull it back, but again it was very hard to control.

 

Why does Premiere continue to have horrible, janky caption implementation?  Why can't I move around captions in groups?  Why can't I re-format the look of all captions at once?  I'm aware there are third-party tools to make captions (and I use Aegisub for this purpose because it's much faster than Premiere) but there's just no excuse for software we pay $50 / month for to have such sub-par captioning.  

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Community Expert ,
Nov 11, 2020 Nov 11, 2020

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The now public Beta has the new caption workflow which uses the graphic text, but it is not ready for active projects. But they are making great progress on a complete rework.

 

Stan

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 11, 2020 Nov 11, 2020

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I figured out how to make this tip work for me.  This is when trying to push captions back (right) in the timeline.  Drag the end of the caption clip to where you want the first caption you're moving to end.  Then, ctrl-click the right edge of that caption and drag right a bit.  In my experience it will automatically fill in the caption clip all the way to the cut.  Then, re-expand the caption from the right - the rest of the captions will be "revealed" and should be timed correctly again.  Then, adjust the left edge of the first caption to where you want to start.  

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Participant ,
Feb 11, 2019 Feb 11, 2019

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ahh what a shame, finally the captions can be made to look o.k., but make one edit in your timeline and you have a timing mess!!! it's possible to select more subtitles, but then you can't drag them, what a pain......

why not make it possible to cut the caption track, just like any other video, and then be able to combine them together again, with the timing points of the sequence/timeline? that should be quite easy to program.

so either multi-select and drag ("rubber band" please, not select each individually with mouse), or cut the track as desired and then weld/combine again with good timing. that would be superb and make this a very good subtitle editing tool too.

david

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New Here ,
Nov 16, 2019 Nov 16, 2019

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If you hold cmd/control while dragging out the end of a caption it ripple shifts all the captions after it. So you can do this for the size space you need then bring the one caption back down to size and insert the new captions in the space.

AhmedJoo

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Explorer ,
Dec 14, 2019 Dec 14, 2019

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Oh my god, you just saved the day!  I had to move an entire documentary's worth of captions and was unable to figure out how to do it, since the timecode of each caption doesn't change if you simply slide the caption track along.  Ripple shifting the captions was EXACTLY what I needed!  Thank you!!

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Community Expert ,
Jul 15, 2020 Jul 15, 2020

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diana81922,

 

The trick for you will be exporting your modified caption stream. Make sure you have backups.

 

Select the SEQUENCE in the Project Panel. File -> Export -> Captions. The export will have the timings from the sequence. Import back to PR and use that new stream rather than the old one.

 

If you cut and removed part of the caption stream, you may be ready for the export. If not, cut the part of the caption stream you no longer need.

 

Stan

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New Here ,
Oct 25, 2020 Oct 25, 2020

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Hey, if you are on Mac and need to shift your Captions backward / forward, which is not possible in Premiere Pro (the ripple tool trick causes a bug on some systems), just download "Subtitle Edit Pro" from App Store and use the "adjust TC" function. 

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