Reconfiguring Subtitles

[Tom Brooks]

Spherico has a lot of info and some tools that may be of use. Usefulness might depend on the versions you are editing in.

Worth a look if you don’t mind sorting it all out. https://www.spherico.com/filmtools/TitleExchange/

[Nick Meyers]

Spherico Title Exchange is what you need.

other than that you could export an XML file from the timeline, and do a “search and replace” in a text edit program,
where you replace one font for another.

it could be a bit tricky (i haven’t done it)
to be safe would copy the sequence and then delete everything except the subtitles.
an XML from that sequence would be a lot easier to deal with.

oh, and test it on a small sequence with one or a few subtitles.

but Title Exchange is built for this.

nick

[Neil Sadwelkar]

You can make an XML of your sequence. Then open that in Text edit and do a ‘Save as’ with another name.
Then search for a tag that is
20
where 20 is your font size.

Do a search and replace to
24
Assuming you want it to be 24 now.

Mind that you have to unsure that the value tag is for font size not some basic motion value.

Replace all tags and save the XML.

Import in FCP and you have a new sequence with font size changed dorm 20 to 24.

If you have FCP 7.0.2 then the XML import will lose all line breaks. This is a bug.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Neil Sadwelkar]

[Neil Sadwelkar] “Then search for a tag that is
20
where 20 is your font size.

Do a search and replace to
24
Assuming you want it to be 24 now.”

should read…

Then search for a tag that looks like this

where 18 is your font size.

Do a search and replace of

to

Assuming you want it to be 21 now.

I wrote the post and typed the XML tags which vanished when I posted.
You will have to type the tags as they appear in the picture, or copy and paste them from the XML file in the Search and Replace window.

———————————–
Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India

[Troy Lanier]

Just confirming that what Neil recommends works. I just did it and replaced over 500 instances

[Harrison Schaaf]

guys, excellent tip – thanks so much.

using your method i was not only able to replace the code that dealt with the font size but also font aspect, leading, tracking, and font type…very pleased with that.

however, my final cut system is really choking on the XML reimport…hangs up at 80%, or 95% if I instruct it to skip the step of reconnecting the media…

how long are you guys allowing for this process? i’m dealing with a 55 minute piece, about 1/3 of which is subtitled. just curious about whether or not i’m pulling the plug on the process too early.

in the meantime, many thanks for this tip –

[Nick Meyers]

did you export your entire project as XML?
that can be quite huge

even an XML of you entire 55min timeline could choke.

i would recommend copying your SUBTITLES ONLY into a new sequence, and exporting and editing an XML of that.

or if that is too much, then maybe splitting it down even further into 2 subtle only sequences.

nick

[Surya Samaddar]

Thank you so much Neil
Because of you I could change the font of 50 subtitles in one go.
I tried it and this method works like charm.
The only thing one needs to bother is that before you open the XML in TextEdit, you have to go to the preferences and check the Plain Text radiobutton under Format option. Also while opening the XML one has to check the option “Ignore Rich Text Effects”. This way it will work like Notepad of Windows. Afterwards a Find and Replace All will do the rest of the job

Thank you a lot

Surya Samaddar
Freelance Sound Recordist and Post Production Sound Designer
Editor, DVD Authoring, Closed Captioning