I’ve been trying to add subtitles to a project. I followed a tutorial and used the subtitles option, and generated the subtitles on the timeline. It works, they do appear. However, they are too short, so I’ve tried editing the length.
There this option to define the beginning and end of the subtitles, but it doesn’t work: it changes the output length, but it doesn’t actually change for how long the subtitles stay on screen.
So I’ve tried moving the text thingy on the timeline, like you would to lengthen/shorten a video clip but…I can only shorten it. If I take the right most part of the text, and move it left to shorten it, it works. But I can’t lengthen it any way I’ve tried.
I’ve been battling the subtitles for days now, it’s becoming really tiresome and I can’t find a solution anywhere. I would really appreciate help.
Thank you.
Hello, thanks for your answer.
However, I was already doing that. Indeed, it changes the output length, but not the actual time where the subtitles are visible on screen. Said time of visibility seems to be tied to the text created by “generate text on timeline” and it doesn’t change with the output. The text is what I cannot make longer - though I can make it shorter for some reason.
It looks like you are using Generate Text on Timeline to make your subtitles visible on screen. This should only be used when you are sure all of your text is correct. The text in the generated clips are not editable from the Subtitles panel anymore.
Try Burn In Subtitles on Output instead. You’ll see the subtitles on the screen and any changes you make in the panel will be updated on screen as well.
Yes. But they are very easy to delete and re-generate. The main point is that the generated text is not automatically synchronized with the subtitles. Good thinking.
Hi @brian, can I just mention here that after Generate Text on Timeline is selected, all the text clips produced are automatically styled with the standard SC default, ie Verdana 60 Bold, thickness 3, positioned 810 pixels from the top, etc… (see screenshot).
This limitation has precluded me from using this great feature many times, because once selected the attributes can’t be changed globally without changing each individual text clip - which is out of the question for videos with multiple subtitles (ie most videos!)
I was wondering if a way could be found to allow the user to determine the text attributes of text clips globally (without of course changing the text content), either a) after selecting Generate Text on Timeline, or even better, b) generally, to be able to change all text filter attributes in a project globally?
I thought of a possible idea to add a “set as default” button to the text filter panel (see below) and posted it a while ago, but the idea wasn’t adopted. Many thanks in advance if you could maybe consider this again.
Thanks for thinking about it! I appreciate it may be tricky. Particularly because the Text filters are quite unique in that they contain both parameters of style/position etc, PLUS content (the text itself), so just copying/pasting the filter means that the text content is pasted also.
Not ideal when you have a lot of text clips to change in one go!
That would be a terrific improvement, if it could be done.
I noticed that too. I also notice that at least one filter, the 360: Equirectangular to Rectilinear filter, has a button marked “Copy parameters”:
Might it be possible to add a similar button, plus a button “Paste parameters” to the Text:simple (and possibly Text:Rich) filter? At least then I could, after selecting Generate Text On Timeline, set the parameters of the first text clip, then “Copy Parameters”, then go through all the text clips and click “Paste Parameters” on each one.
Still quite tedious, but a much better solution than changing all parameters for each text clip!
PS a few months ago I experimented with an Auto Hotkey script that automatically went through all the text clips on a track and changed the attributes - font, font size, thickness, position etc. It was actually quite successful, but depended on mouse positions, mouse clicks and keyboard shortcuts so it took a long time to set up. Obviously, though, this is not a satisfactory solution for most users who don’t happen to be Auto Hotkey geeks!!
I appreciate you thinking about this problem, @brian!
These buttons are specifically to deal with the same 3D parameters that go by different names in different filters. To copy the video spherical rotation to the ambisonic audio spherical rotation.
For your use case with simple text you should use a preset. Make a preset with empty text so that it does not save the text. Then, you can apply it to each generated text.
Somehow I didn’t clock then, that if I remove the text from a Text:simple filter, then save as a preset, when applying the preset to other text clips that the text content will remain the same on the “pasted” clips. I apologize for being dense - your instructions were clear!
So this will be a really useful technique - although for a whole row of text clips produced via Generate Text On timeline I will still have to click on each clip, and then another twice - once to select the “preset” option to initiate the drop-down, then again on the preset itself.
Not ideal, but it beats changing all the attributes individually! So thanks.
For me though, I’m pretty sure I will be able to concoct an Auto Hotkey script that automates this for a whole row of text clips, so I should soon be able to change a whole bunch by just pressing one hotkey combination!! Wooo! I’ll look into it.
BUT - I think I found a bug. In my limited testing, I found that the font-size is not saved as part of the preset.
Here’s what I did:
Created a text clip with default font etc (Verdana) and text “Hello”.
Added to the timeline and copied this clip to create two clips on the timeline.
Selected the first clip, and changed the font to Segoe, and the font size to 100px.
Changed a few other attributes - position of the text, background colour etc.
Removed the text.
Saved as a preset and named it “Blank Segoe 100”
Applied it to the second text clip.
Result: the text attributes were all updated, EXCEPT the font-size, which remained at 60 px.
I tried it with a few other fonts set to other font sizes (eg Sugarskin BTN Bold, 200px), plus a few others, and the “pasted” clip always seems to be 60px.
I’ll look into it.
