Editing Subtitles

You can use the Subtitle Editor to edit the stream of subtitles, simply click on the subtitle and it will go into edit mode. Clicking outside the subtitle will save your changes. Pushing the Esc key on your keyboard will abort your changes.

Tip: Because ASR may throw more or less errors depending on the audio quality, it will be necessary to correct the result of the AI transcription first. As mentioned in the article 'tips for efficient post-editing of transcripts', the transcription app is better suited to correct these mistakes. Therefore we advise to use the transcription app before generating subtitles.

While editing a subtitle, the appearance and disappearance time of the subtitle are shown at the top of the subtitle. You can type in a new timecode, or use the arrow keys to change the timecode one frame at a time.

But the best way to change the timing is to move the playhead to the desired location in the video and press the little green circle next to the timecode. This will copy the current playhead position into the timing field. This is the same as clicking the SET IN (F9) or SET OUT (F10) buttons.

Note: you can use the “Play IN to OUT” button (F8) to preview the time range!

By default, the subtitle is located in the bottom region. As an alternative, the subtitle can be located in the ‘top region’ by clicking the region button. The icon of the button will change, and the subtitle shown over the video will change its position to something like the example shown below. 

When creating subtitles for the deaf and the hard of hearing (SDH), it is common to use a different colour per speaker. Select some text in the edit box, and press the button with the brush icon. A menu with text colours will appear. In the example below, we changed the text colour to green. If no text is selected and you change the colour, the entire subtitle will change colour. 

Press the button with the trash can to delete a subtitle.

While editing a subtitle, you might see an exclamation triangle appear on the subtitle. This means you are violating one of the subtitle specifications set in the production configuration. 

The example below has too many characters on a single line and too many words for the subtitle duration.

The subtitle will be verified while editing.

The icon might even turn red, which means you are in trouble. A red icon means the subtitle overlaps other subtitles, which will prevent the subtitle from saving. For example, this subtitle overlaps the next subtitle:

If you try to save this subtitle, the subtitle will turn orange and inform you of the overlap:

You can either press ‘back’ to manually solve the issue, or press ‘fix’ to shorten the subtitle automatically.

Changing the Status to 'Completed'

Once you are happy with your subtitles, click the button ‘Mark Completed’ at the top of the Subtitle Editor. This will change the subtitling status on this clip to completed. Depending on the configuration of your workspace, changing the status to 'Completed' might trigger sending a notification to the supervisor or publishing the subtitles on social media.

Furthermore Limecraft allows you to filter on the subtitling status of a clip. This makes it easy to find all clips which have no subtitles yet, or for which subtitles are completed:

Note: you can always revert the status to ‘editing’ if you marked a clip ‘completed’ by accident.

If for any reason you want to restart your subtitling work, click the small arrow button next to ‘mark complete’ and you’ll be presented with a menu like below. Click ‘Delete Subtitles’. Note that this will remove all your work and reset the subtitling status to ‘not yet started’.

The help button on the far right will show a menu with a ‘talk to us’ option. Click it to get in touch. We will help you out if you get stuck for some reason, and we would like to hear your experiences with the application!

Download the cheat sheet, print it, and hang it on your wall!