English subtitle & caption generator

Indian English is full of borrowed words and names: festivals, foods, neighbourhoods, a quick yaar in the middle of a sentence. Each is spelt in Latin letters the way the transcript heard it, and many have two spellings in common use, Bengaluru and Bangalore, or Ganpati and Ganapati. Decide on one and fix it everywhere. Corrections cost nothing and use no further transcription minutes.

A speaker who talks mainly in Hindi, sprinkling in English words, should be transcribed as Hindi. Treated as English, the audio is compared with English vocabulary and Hindi phrases return as similar-sounding English words. Treated as Hindi with romanised output, the Hindi survives and still appears in Latin letters, the usual form for Hinglish captions.

Single-line templates have a Max words per caption setting in the caption settings, adjustable from one to eight. A low number gives more captions, each shown briefly, which suits fast vertical clips. A higher number suits interviews and talks, where viewers have time for a whole phrase.

Next to it are two more controls. Min duration holds a very short caption on screen until it can be read. With Gap between captions you decide how long the screen can remain empty from one caption to the next.

The text case buttons turn a template's words into capitals or small caps. All capitals feel louder and work well for two or three words. Across a long line they slow reading, because every letter is the same height and words lose the outlines that mixed case gives them.

A condensed face packs more into a row; a heavier face stands out against a busy shot. A few that the templates use:

Templates that style an emphasised word may show one such word per caption, picked automatically. The pick avoids small words like the, is, and and you, but it has no way of hearing which word the speaker stressed. Select the right word and press E to mark it; E again removes the mark. On templates with a spotlight, S works the same way.

In the style panel you'll find Letter spacing, Word spacing and Line spacing. Generous letter spacing suits capitals better than lowercase. When a template stacks rows, Line spacing stops them crowding each other.