Subtitling tips: exporting subtitle files for client review

Here’s the first article in my subtitling tips blog series. This time we’re going to look at a quick and hassle-free way of exporting a subtitle file in EZTitles, so your client can review it and make suggestions if they wish. Some clients are happy to trust your work, but I find it is always good to offer them the chance to check it. Remember that clients don’t necessarily know the best way to provide feedback and so guiding them with a simple process means less back and forth for everyone. If you’ve ever had a client send their edits in one big messy list, then this is for you!

What makes subtitle reviews tricky?

In the text translation workflow, it is standard to deliver a file as a Word document where your client can review the translation and make suggestions using Track Changes in the Review tab. Their changes will show up as red text, with the original text crossed out. This makes it really easy for the translator to then review the client’s changes and accept or reject them as necessary before delivering a final version. As a translator, you know exactly what the client wants to change and can make an informed final decision based on your linguistic expertise.

Track Changes in Word

Text edited with Track Changes

The trouble with subtitling is very few clients know how to open subtitle files to make edits according to time and space constraints. Saving subtitle files as Word files can also corrupt them. While it’s always best to educate your client about reading speed and character limits before asking them to review your file, they may still make inappropriate edits that are too long or unbalanced if they are editing outside of subtitling software with no idea of the reading speed. Even if your client is able to open the subtitle file and edit it on their end, you don’t want to go through 1,000 subtitles one by one and compare it to the file you delivered to figure out where they made their edits.

One of the best ways to ensure your client makes clear and appropriate changes is to deliver the subtitle file along with a Rich Text Format (RTF) file, which contains more data and is more stable than a Word file. Now, you can do this simply by right-clicking on the subtitle file and opening it in Word, then saving it as an RTF. Your client can then edit the subtitles like they would a Word file. But how do they know how long each subtitle should be?

Exporting an RTF file in EZTitles

Well, in EZTitles, you can export an RTF and select what type of information you want it to contain, including a maximum character limit.

Just follow these steps:

1.      Click on RTF/DOC and then “Config” to configure the file before exporting.

2.      You can then choose the information you want to include in your file.

I like to choose the above options: the italics and alignment data and then the data that usually appears above the subtitle text in a subtitling file, for example, subtitle number and in and out cues. The additional and most important information here is “Include Reading Speed Information”. This will add the ideal number of characters (including spaces) above each subtitle.

3.      Open your exported RTF in Word. You’ll see it’ll look like this:

The final number after the in and out cues is what is going to guide your client as they make their edits. In EZTitles, it is the maximum character limit for your subtitle based on the reading speed you set in your subtitling project settings.

Note that this limit is based on the “Characters per second” value in your project settings, rather than the “upper limit” set under “Indicators”, for example 17 cps in this case.

Reading speed project settings in EZTitles

 4.      Deliver the subtitle file and RTF file to your client. Remember to turn on Track Changes in the Review tab, so as soon as they start reviewing your file, their edits are tracked. 

I usually add a line saying something like, “Here is the subtitle file, along with an RTF file for you to make any edits. Please use Track Changes, so I can easily see what you have changed. Above each subtitle, you can see the subtitle number, in and out cues and the maximum character limit (with spaces) based on the available time for each subtitle. Please make sure any edits are under this character limit, so they can be read in time. I can then review your changes and implement them into the final subtitle file.”

If your client doesn’t know how to check the characters per subtitle, tell them to highlight the subtitle text in Word and click on the word count at the bottom:

Word Count in Word

5.      Once your client returns the reviewed RTF, you can go through each edit and accept/reject. You can then import this RTF back into your subtitling software or make each change directly to your subtitle file in your subtitling software.

Let’s say your client made a change that’s too long. As you can see in the above example, the first subtitle was edited and is now 5 characters over the maximum limit of 48 characters for this first subtitle. When we export the RTF file back into our subtitling software, it is over the 17 cps limit we set in our project settings and it has been automatically split over two lines:

But hopefully if you made your client aware of the character limit, you won’t have to deal with that!

Managing client expectations

I have found this to be one of the best ways to manage client expectations and educate them about subtitling constraints before they make any changes to your file. This avoids disappointment on their end and awkward back and forth, as you try to explain why their suggestions are not appropriate in this particular instance. Making them aware of the character limit gives them insight into the constraints you had to consider. When I was a project manager, it was standard to deliver subtitle files as RTFs, but they didn’t contain this vital piece of information. In my experience, an awareness of the character limit leads to fewer subjective edits overall, as your client is more likely to respect and understand your decisions. It makes them realise that a lot of creativity and thought has gone into each subtitle and editing is harder than they think!

I hope you found this quick trick useful! If you use EZTitles, I would love to hear if this helped simplified your communication and review process with your client. If you use other software, have you found a way to include the character limit in your exported subtitle file? Or do you have any other tips for managing client expectations and feedback?