How To Add Subtitle File To Video

Calculation subtitles to your videos files is a sure way to increase video shares past at least 15%. This is peculiarly truthful for videos on social media, where over fourscore% of views are without audio.

No matter where yous plan on posting your video, it's a good idea to add subtitles. But it's not always easy to effigy out how to do that.

Then we'll walk yous through how to add subtitles to MP4 files in 5 like shooting fish in a barrel steps. If you're more of a video-learner, nosotros got you covered correct here (if you lot'd rather read, continue scrolling):

Click here to watch the video -> youtube.com/spotter?5=mXilGbRiBK8

Adding Subtitles to MP4s with Aegisub

Unless you want to manually create a very long text file that contains your subtitles, yous'll want to use an app that's designed for adding subtitles to your MP4. We recommend Aegisub, a free and open-source tool that'southward great for adding subtitles to videos on both Windows and Mac.

Working with Aegisub isn't always intuitive, merely once yous get the hang of information technology, you'll exist able to add subtitles relatively speedily. We'll walk you through the basics here to requite you lot an idea of how to get started.

Get-go by heading to https://aegisub.en.uptodown.com/windows and downloading the app for your operating system.

1. Open up Your Video

Afterwards the program's been installed, open it and click Video > Open Video.

Select your video and hit Open.

You'll now see the main subtitling interface:

On the left, yous'll see the video yous opened. On the right is the audio track. And at the bottom is the subtitle grid, which includes the start and finish time, characters per second (CPS), styling, and the text of each subtitle.

2. Select the Sound for Subtitling

To get started, curlicue the audio track to the first line you'd like to subtitle. Yous can either hit the Play push under the video or use the scroll bar under the sound track to find the first spoken communication sounds in the spectrum analyzer.

Selecting the audio for the caption in Aegisub

Yous tin also click the Spectrum Analyzer Mode button to modify to a waveform view, if it'south helpful:

No matter which mode you use, click and elevate to select the first phrase or judgement that you'd like to subtitle. Use the video and the spectrum analyzer to determine expert starting and ending times for the subtitle.

Selecting the first phrase for the caption

To play the audio from your selection, striking the Spacebar or click the Play audio until the end of the selection is reached button (information technology'south the play button between blueish brackets).

Suit both ends of the selection until it covers the amount of time that y'all'd like your subtitle to be on the screen.

3. Enter Your Subtitles

Then click into the subtitle editor and type the words you lot'd like displayed on the screen:

As yous type, yous'll see 2 numbers going up. Kickoff, the number of characters in the longest line of the subtitle:

Second, the CPS value in the subtitle filigree below:

If either of these boxes turns red, you may want to reconsider how you're formatting your subtitle.

Likewise many characters per line make the viewer'south eye move far across the screen, which isn't platonic. You can add a line intermission by pressing Shift + Enter to move some of your text onto the next line.

Note the "\Due north" in the line to a higher place; you can also type these characters for a line break.

If the CPS value is too loftier, y'all're asking your readers to get through a lot of text in a brusk period of time. To fix this, you'll demand to split your text beyond two unlike subtitles (see below for an easy style to practice this).

When you're satisfied with the amount of text yous take in the subtitle, hit Enter or click Commit any pending sound changes (the light-green check mark beneath the spectrum analyzer).

You'll now see a subtitle in the subtitles grid, marked with the times that yous've selected:

If you need to tweak the times that the subtitle is displayed, just click the subtitle in the grid and alter the outset and end times in the subtitle editor below the audio track.

When you commit changes to a subtitle, Aegisub will create a new pick for you lot that you can then employ for the side by side subtitle. If you need to manually create a new subtitle, only right-click in the subtitle grid and select Insert (before), Insert (after), Insert at video fourth dimension (before), or Insert at video time (afterward).

In one case you've created a subtitle, simply repeat the process for the rest of the audio in your video. Exist certain to play the whole video from time to time to make sure that your subtitles are timed well.

4. Salvage or Export Your Subtitles

When you lot're washed subtitling your MP4, yous'll want to salve the subtitle file so you lot can use it afterwards. Just click File > Save or the Save icon in the card bar.

You'll notice that your file is saved, past default, in the Advanced Substation Alpha (.Donkey) format. This is a full-featured format, just might not be as widely accepted as the more than common .SRT format (for example, yous'll demand an SRT file to upload your subtitles to YouTube).

If you want to save your subtitles as an SRT file, merely go to File > Consign Subtitles and click Export on the resulting window. You lot can then save your file with any supported extension, including .SRT.

5. Encode Your Subtitles (Optional)

In one case you've saved or exported your subtitles, they're ready to exist loaded in a media player. Many media players allow yous to open a video file and select a separate subtitle file to be played with it.

This is convenient, as it ways you can add subtitles without encoding. And that saves you lot fourth dimension.

If y'all want to permanently add subtitles to your MP4 (oftentimes called "difficult subbing"), though, you'll need to encode them into the video. Note that if yous hard sub your subtitles, there volition never be an option to turn them off. They'll be permanently displayed in that video file.

We like VLC for this, every bit it'southward another free app that's packed with useful features.

To hard lawmaking your subtitles into an MP4 file, open up VLC and open up the video with Media > Open File.

When you file is open, click Subtitle > Add together Subtitle File:

Adding subtitle file to your video player of choice

Select your file, and VLC volition load information technology.

Let the video play for a few moments to ensure that the subtitle file has been loaded correctly.

If everything looks alright, hit File > Convert/Salvage.

In the resulting window, click Add to select your video file:

Then make certain that Use a subtitle file is checked, and click Scan to select your subtitle file.

Click Catechumen/Save, and then enter a destination for your file and hit Start.

When VLC is done encoding, you lot'll have an MP4 with difficult-coded subtitles.

Tips for Easier Subtitling

There's a huge number of options, shortcuts, workflows, and tools in Aegisub that make the subtitling process easier. And if y'all plan on doing a lot of subtitling, it will pay off to learn them.

But if you're only going to use it occasionally, or for smaller projects, yous don't demand to know everything. Nosotros've picked out a few useful things hither that will assistance you add together subtitles to your MP4s more efficiently.

Make the Audio Runway Coil with Video

With default settings, the audio rail view doesn't advance when the video is played. Information technology can be very helpful to sync the two when you're trying to discover the best place to start and stop your subtitles.

Hit Alt + O to open up Aegisub'due south options, and click Audio in the left sidebar.

To make sure the video and audio rails displays are always synced, select Lock whorl on the cursor.

At present, when you lot play the video, the audio rail will scroll to keep up. This will help you lot figure out where the audio starts and stops while the video is playing.

Editing Subtitle Styles

Aegisub lets you apply all sorts of dissimilar styles to your subtitles. The default way is size 20 Arial font, in white, with black outlines and shadows.

To change that, click the Styles Manager button in the menu bar:

In the Styles Managing director, you'll see a single script: Default. To edit your default style, select Default and click Edit.

In the resulting window, you tin can change fonts, sizes, colors, outlines, shadows, and alignments of your subtitles:

You can also employ the Styles Director to create new styles for use in your MP4.

After you've created a new manner, you can apply it to any subtitle past selecting it in the manner dropdown in the subtitle editor:

Splitting Subtitles

When you select a department of audio and Aegisub tells y'all that you've put in too many characters, you'll want to divide your text over ii unlike subtitles.

Instead of reselecting new timestamps, you tin can save yourself time by splitting the subtitle at a specific place. You'll then have two subtitles that bridge the length of the original 1.

First, accelerate the video to where y'all desire the split up to be.

Then correct-click the subtitle you want to split up and select Dissever lines before electric current frame or Split up lines after electric current frame.

Split lines after current frame in Aegisub

The subtitle volition be duplicated, so you'll need to alter the text in the resulting subtitles. But the timing will exist perfect.

Using Hotkeys

Aegisub has a huge list of hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts. Nosotros've covered just a couple of the virtually useful hither, only if yous're going to be spending a lot of fourth dimension working on subtitles, yous'll want to get accustomed to using more than of them.

To run across the full list, open the Preferences window by pressing Alt + O, and click Interface > Hotkeys in the left sidebar.

There are 8 different categories of hotkeys, roofing everything from saving and quitting to advancing the video one frame at a time. Look around to see what might be useful for you, or use the search bar at the top of the screen to find the hotkey you need.

Keep Practicing

Like whatever other powerful app, Aegisub has a lot of features that can brand your life easier—but they can besides be very intimidating. The best mode to get used to the app and learn to use information technology more efficiently is to practice. It's going to be frustrating at times, but you lot'll get the hang of information technology.

You tin also check out the Aegisub manual if you have a specific question.

Now that you know how to add subtitles to MP4 files, though, y'all're ready to get started! Whether you lot're uploading videos to YouTube or Facebook, making your own movies, or building a video course, you can at present create, consign, and encode your subtitles.