Overview
What is Subtitle Edit?
Subtitle Edit is a free, open-source editor for video subtitles. It allows you to create, edit, adjust, and convert subtitles in a wide variety of formats.
Subtitle Edit 5 is the latest generation, built with Avalonia UI for cross-platform support (Windows, Linux, macOS).
Note: Subtitle Edit 5 is currently in beta testing.
Key Features
- Create and edit subtitles in 300+ formats
- Synchronize subtitles to video with visual tools
- Speech to Text — transcribe audio using Whisper engines
- Text to Speech — generate audio from subtitle text
- Translate subtitles automatically
- OCR — convert image-based subtitles (Blu-ray, DVD, etc.) to text
- Fix common errors automatically
- Spell check with dictionary support
- Burn-in subtitles into video
- Batch convert multiple files
- ASSA/SSA styling with advanced override tags, drawing, and positioning
- Waveform/spectrogram for precise timing
- Shot change detection for professional workflows
- Export to image based subtitles (Blu-ray SUP, BDN-xml, VobSub, etc.)
System Requirements
Getting Started
- Download and install Subtitle Edit
- Open a video file via Video → Open video file…
- Open or create a subtitle file via File → Open or File → New
- Edit subtitles in the text editor and subtitle grid
- Use the waveform to visually adjust timing
- Save your work via File → Save
Main Window Layout
The main window consists of several key areas:
- Menu Bar — Access all features
- Toolbar — Quick access to common actions
- Subtitle Grid — List of all subtitle lines with timing and text
- Text Editor — Edit the currently selected subtitle text
- Video Player — Preview video with subtitles
- Audio Visualizer — Waveform/spectrogram for precise timing adjustments
Subtitle Edit offers 12 different layouts for arranging these areas. You can choose and customize the layout via Options → Choose layout.
For a detailed guide to each area, mouse interactions, and keyboard shortcuts, see the Main Window documentation.
