Aegisub Advanced Subtitle Editor is an open source tool for editing and creating digital subtitle/caption files. Providing support for editing, styling, and positioning subtitles, Aegisub supports many different subtitle file formats.
Aegisub provides an interesting way to assign the start and stop times of subtitles, with an audio waveform display that makes it easy to visually find the points in the timeline where sonic information is happening. This allows you to click in directly where the audio is happening instead of listening in real time.
There are Aegisub versions for both Windows and MacOS, with different versions written in 27 different languages.
Aegisub can produce subtitles in most languages in use today, across a range of character encoding that enables Asian and Cyrillic fonts as well as traditional western fonts.
In addition to being used by professional media production companies, Aegisub also has a huge user base in the fansubbing community, where it is used to create unofficial subtitles for videos.
Aegisub also features styles for creating karaoke videos.
Getting Aegisub
You can download Aegisub at http://www.aegisub.org/downloads/#current.
It is recommended to use the 32 bit version, as the 64-bit version is slower and does not provide the same range of supported technologies as the 32 bit version.
Using Aegisub to Create Captions
Aegisub is a powerful tool that allows for advanced workflows that include automation and sophisticated styling.
Fortunately, it is also easy enough to use that hobbyists and educators alike can use it for simple subtitling.
Start Aegis
After you’ve downloaded and installed Aegisub, start the Aegisub application.
The Aegisub application will open.
Open Subtitles
To begin, we will open your subtitle file.
Go to the File menu and select “Open Subtitles”You can also use Aegisub to transcribe your video, if you prefer (choose “New Subtitles” if you are going to transcribe your video in Aegisub.
Aegisub will open subtitles in the following formats:
- .txt
- .srt
- .sub
- .mkv
- .mka
- .mks
- .ass
- .ssa
Choose your Text import options, and click OK.
Your subtitles will be loaded into the text grid.
Open Video/Audio
Go to the Video or Audio window and choose the option you prefer for determining the timing for each line of captions.
In either case you will notice the wave form editor will display the audio information on a timeline.
Audio Display
Go to the Audio menu and select “Waveform display” if it is not already selected. This makes the audio information more distinct and easy to identify the start and stop points.
There are fader controls at the right of the audio display to control the horizontal and vertical zoom of the audio display.
Adjust the display so you can easily see when audio is beginning and ending.
Font Styling
Within the Line Editor window, you can format the font face and size, as well as the colors for outline, fill, and shadow (if you’re making karaoke, you can also format the karaoke timing colors).
It is recommended you do not use smaller than 20 pt fonts. Depending on the format of your video, you may want to use larger font sizes.
For best results, it is recommended you test the playback of your subtitles and be sure you are able to easily read them.
From within the Line Editing window, you can also format subtitles from multiple speakers, as well as create comments.
Edit Text to Size
Edit your text to make sure none of the lines are excessively long.
Aegisub provides a wide range of keyboard commands for editing text, splitting, and adding lines.
Aegisub will highlight in pink the field next to the Effect pull-down menu when a line of captions has too many characters.
Associate Timing
You need to assign a presentation time for each line of subtitles that defines a starting and ending time.
In the text grid, select the line of subtitles you want to assign a start and stop time for.
In the audio window, left-click where the subtitle begins, and right-click where the subtitle ends.
Aegisub will place a red line at the starting point in the audio window, and a blue line at the end time.
Press “R” to play the currently selected range of audio to make sure you are capturing the correct portion of the audio waveform.
When you are satisfied with the timing, press ENTER and Aegisub will commit the time values and move to the next line in the text grid.
Proceed through the audio/video and text grid until each line of subtitles has a presentation time assigned.
Save or Export
When you have finished formatting and timing the subtitles, you can use Aegisub to preview your work and make sure the subtitles are properly synchronized with the spoken audio.
When you are satisfied, you can save the subtitles as an Advanced Alpha Substation (.ass) file, or else you can choose the Export option from the File menu to generate an .stl, .sub, .ssa, .ttxt, .txt, encore .txt, and .translation.txt.
Additional Resources
Aegisub is supported by an in-depth online manual that includes tutorials for getting started and delving into the advanced uses if you choose to go there.
Access the user manual for the latest version (3.2) at: http://docs.aegisub.org/3.2/Main_Page/
Find out more at the Aegisub project website: aegisub.org.
Now you can create and edit captions and subtitles for your instructional videos (and karaoke) with Aegisub for free.
Thanks for reading!
