There are over a hundred of legitimate subtitle file formats, designed to support different applications or enabling a different range of functional requirements. In this series of articles, we explain the main characteristics of each subtitle file format. This article provides further detail about the SubRip Text or SRT Subtitle File Format. 

The SubRip or SubRip Text file format is described on the Matroska multimedia container format website as "perhaps the most basic of all subtitle formats". Therefore it is arguably the most widely adopted subtitle file format. In principle, the SRT subtitle file format does not support colour, position and markup information.


SubRip (SubRip Text) files are named with the extension .srt, and contain formatted lines of plain text in groups separated by a blank line. Subtitles are numbered sequentially, starting at 1. The timecode format used is hours:minutes:seconds,milliseconds with time units fixed to two zero-padded digits and fractions fixed to three zero-padded digits (00:00:00,000). The fractional separator used is the comma, since the program was written in France.


  1. A numeric counter identifying each sequential subtitle
  2. The time that the subtitle should appear on the screen, followed by --> and the time it should disappear
  3. Subtitle text itself on one or more lines
  4. A blank line containing no text, indicating the end of this subtitle


Text snippet illustrating the text layout of the content of an SRT (SubRip Text) subtitle file.


However, SRT or SubRip Text formats can be extended to add support of colours and text styles by adding html code inline with the text. SRT layout extensions do not support positioning. Please be advised that support for colours and text styles is not garanteed by the playout system.


An example of a file using the SRT file including colour coding and text styling.


1

00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,480

Subtitle one, white, normal text, left positioned

at the bottom.


2

00:00:05,480 --> 00:00:09,760

<font color="yellow">Subtitle two, yellow, right positioned at the top.</font>


3

00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:14,440

<font color="cyan">Subtitle three, cyan, centre positioned in the</font>

<font color="cyan">middle.</font>


4

00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:20,920

Subtitle four, white, with an italic <i>word,</i> an

underlined <u>word</u> and a bold <b>word.</b>


Limecraft Support for SubRip Text or SRT File Format

Limecraft supports input and export of subtitle files in SRT file format. Limecraft does not support text styling apart from colour coding, such as Bold or Italics in general. 


Colour codes and styling extensions are not supported when importing SRT files. Colour coding is supported upon export of an SRT file.


Limecraft screenshot illustrating how to export a SubRipi Text or SRT file format including colour coding