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How to Make your own Subtitles for Free

If you are on a budget and would like to make your own subtitles, you can do this via a few different online and offline programs, it is time consuming, but if you wish to learn, we thought we’d share how to make your own subtitles, this time using subtitle workshop.

How to Make your own Subtitles using Subtitle Workshop

Video subtitling tutorial, how to use subtitle workshop, create subtitles for free, free subtitling softwareFirst off, type in Subtitle Workshop into your browser. Then download the program and install it to your computer. At the time of writing, Subtitle Workshop is only compatible with Windows, so Mac users will not be able to use this program for making subtitles. For Mac users, I will research and review other free subtitling programs. In the meantime, there are other online platforms where you can create subtitle files in a variety of formats (including srt files) such as YouTube or DotSub.

How to Use Subtitle Workshop – Make your own Subtitles

Once Subtitle workshop has been installed, open it.

  • To load the new video file, select Movie’ and then Open’ (Shortcut [Ctrl] + [P]) from along the menu bar. Then select the video you want to subtitle. If the video will not open or is unsupported, you may need to download a codec pack, which should fix this issue.
  • When your video has loaded onto the top screen, it’s time to create your subtitle file. To do this go along the top menu again to File’ and New subtitle’ (Shortcut [Ctrl] + [N]). Your subtitle file has now been created.
  • Once I have created the subtitle, I like to save the file by going to File’ and then Save’ (Shortcut [Ctrl] + [S]). At this point you will be given the option to save your subtitle file in a huge variety of subtitle and caption formats. In this instance and for the purposes of this article, we will be creating an .srt file, as these are the most compatible with online videos. Then name the subtitle file with the same title as your video.
  • To add text and timings to the video subtitle, you first need to play the video to mark the start of the first subtitle. You can play the video by selecting the play’ key located under the video (shortcut [Ctrl] + [spacebar]).
  • When the speech starts, you can either add the in time’ manually or press shortcut [Alt] + [C] on the keyboard. This will set the in time of your subtitle. You then play the video again, to listen to the first line of dialogue.
  • Once you are happy with the text you wish to use for your first subtitle line, type this into the text box and then either manually select the out time or shortcut [Alt] + [V] to set the out time of the subtitle line. It is recommended that for subtitles the characters are no longer than 40  50 and for captioning no longer than 35  40.
  • By selecting the out time, this should send you to the next subtitle line, which if the dialogue is flowing, you can then just carry on typing from the last one without inserting a new in time. If there is a silence or the dialogue is broken, play the video until speech begins and then [Alt] + [C] for the in time.
  • Continue to select in time, type the text and out time until your subtitle is complete. Then export and save your completed subtitle in subrip format (or srt).

Checking your Subtitles and Closed Captions

It is recommended that you watch the entire video through once you have finished writing your subtitle file to ensure that the text is in sync with the video and the timings are correct. If you are translating text, then files should be saved with a UTF-8 coding to ensure they are displayed correctly and do not throw out any strange characters. You can also edit the Show’, Duration’ and Hide’ field as required.

Your subtitle file is now ready to be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo and is even used by video players such as Netflix or Amazon Video!

Shortcut Key for Subtitle Workshop

Shortcut Key:

OPEN MOVIE – [Ctrl] + [P])

NEW SUBTITLE – [Ctrl] + [N]).

IN TIME – [Alt] + [C]

OUT TIME – [Alt] + [V]

PLAY/STOP VIDEO – [Ctrl] + [spacebar]

If you would like more information on any of our subtitling services, closed captioning services, video transcription services, translation services or typing services, feel free to contact us today. We are available seven days a week and always happy to help.

The instruction manual and more information about Subtitle Workshop can be found here.

The video tutorials are here.