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Adjusting captions in the timeline

Adjusting captionย timing

You can drag the edges of the captions to reposition them on the timeline. The waveform can help as a visual guide to the audio.

Click and drag in the middle of the caption to reposition the entire caption.

Video showing a user editing a caption with the timeline drag controls
Video showing a user editing a caption with the timeline drag controls

Captions will turn red if they exceed the limits for minimum or maximum durations, or if they overlap. Placing your cursor at the start or end of a caption will display itโ€™s exact start or end time.

You can trim captions with the keyboard shortcuts [ and ]. Position the playhead to the point at which you'd like to trim or extend the caption, and hit [ to change the caption's in-point, or ] to change the caption's out-point.

Ripple edit

Ripple edit is a tool for adjusting many captions simultaneously. This can be useful when importing captions from other sources, or if a project's original video has changed, and you need to re-time your captions to fit a new edit.

To use Ripple edit, click anywhere outside of the spreadsheet view, and hit the R key. That toggles Ripple edit on, and you'll see a notification confirming this.

Now, drag a caption in the timeline. Every single caption to theย rightย of the caption you're dragging will be moved as well. To move all the captions in the timeline, simply drag the first caption.

Once you're finished, remember to hit R again to toggle Ripple edit off.

Roll edit

Whilst hovering the cursor over a caption intersection and holding down Cmd (Mac) / Control (Windows), you can perform a โ€œroll editโ€, which means you resize two neighbouring captions at once by adjusting the end time of the former, and the start time of the latter in one move.

Roll edit in action, the timecodes at the bottom show the new end time (left) and start time (right) after the roll edit
Roll edit in action, the timecodes at the bottom show the new end time (left) and start time (right) after the roll edit

Right-click on the timeline

You can right-click on the timeline to:

  • Split the caption at the exact location of your click
  • Delete the caption
  • Merge the caption with the next caption
  • Perform a precision ripple edit from the clicked caption

Locking the timeline

If you want to prevent further adjustments to caption timings, you can lock the timeline on the project page.

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