Break text into subtitles

Splitting and merging subtitles

To create a new subtitle (after the current subtitle), press the Return key. Press Shift Return to create a new line within the current subtitle or Ctrl Return to split the subtitle at the current cursor position.

Whenever a new subtitle is created, its initial timecodes are automatically set based on the Out time of the preceding subtitle and the current timing rules.

To merge two subtitles together, either put the cursor at the start of the second subtitle and press the Backspace key or position the cursor at the end of the first subtitle and press the Delete key.

You can also merge subtitles regardless of the location of the cursor within the subtitle:

Ctrl Shift K merges next subtitle to current subtitle. Intime from current subtitle, outtime from next subtitle.

Ctrl Alt K merges previous subtitle to current subtitle. Intime from previous subtitle, outtime from current subtitle.

Click here to learn how Wincaps Q4 deals with timecodes when splitting and merging subtitles.

To move entire subtitles or blocks of subtitles around, use the Compact View.

Moving text between rows ("snake")

You can use the snake keys to easily move words between rows, allowing you to fine-tune the text formatting for best display.

The Ctrl Down Arrow key pushes the last word in the current row (i.e. the row where the cursor is currently positioned) down onto the beginning of the next row, creating a new row if necessary.

The Ctrl Up Arrow key pulls the first word of the next row up and appends it to the current row. If there is insufficient space on the current row to contain the word the operation has no effect.

For example, with the cursor in the first row of a subtitle, thus:

pressing Ctrl Down Arrow pushes the last word down to the start of the next row, as shown below:

Successive use of snake will move the last word to the next row until the row width limit is reached, at which point the last word in the next row is pushed down to a third row (if this is permitted).

Four additional snake keys allow you to move words between subtitles:

Ctrl 8 - moves the first word of the current subtitle up to the end of the previous subtitle
Ctrl Shift 8 - moves the last word of the previous subtitle down to the start of the current subtitle
Ctrl 9 - moves the last word of the current subtitle down to the start of the next subtitle
Ctrl Shift 9 - moves the first word of the next subtitle up to the end of the current subtitle

Note that the 8 and 9 keys for these keystrokes are those located on the main keypad, and not those on the numeric keypad which are used for colouring subtitles.

If the Punctuation & Size>Subtitles 'Enforce maximum height of' is enable/ticked then any snaking command that breaks the row limit will not be allowed and a message 'Cannot snake word new row would be created that exceeds row limit' will be displayed in the Messages window. When only the row limit is set, then Wincaps assumes Open Caption row length to be 44 characters, Teletext to be 37 characters and Closed Caption (Line 21) to be 32 characters.

Reformatting subtitles

You can use the Ctrl R key (F4 key in Q-Live) (optionally the Tab key) to quickly reformat the text in the current subtitle. Reformatting splits the text from the current cursor position into rows, fitting the maximum number of words into each row.

For example, with the cursor in the first row of a subtitle thus:

pressing Ctrl R (F4) reformats the subtitle as shown below:

Re-split subtitles

(Wincaps Q4 Offline only)

You can use the re-split subtitles function to re-split the entire file according to the automatic text splitting rules.

You can access this function by:

Clicking the re-split button located on the file toolbar
Selecting Tools : Re-split subtitles from the main menu

A re-split works on the whole file and resets all timecodes to zero (unless word timings are present). It also resets other subtitle attributes such as position and removes any section markers. It should therefore normally only be used after importing or inserting an unstructured block of text in order to provide a starting point for further work. This operation cannot be undone except by restoring from the automatic backup

Click here to learn more about how automatic text splitting works.

Inserting speaker change dashes into dialogue

Wincaps Q4 provides the capability to insert a dash at the start of each row of the current subtitle as described below:

The original text looks like this.

Press the Ctrl - key to insert a dash followed by a single space at the beginning of each row of the subtitle.

Press the Ctrl Shift - key to insert a dash without the space.

Press the keystroke again to remove the dashes. If there is insufficient space on a row to accommodate the dashes the row will be split.