Edit: NOTE: This is a completely original tutorial from me. All pictures, text, etc. are my me. I originally wanted this to be for labnol… cept I didn’t realize theirs ended early T___T

This inspiration came to me from watching anime. DISCLAIMER: Mind you, I do know it’s somewhat illegal, but whatever I download I always delete and I don’t ever watch anything that’s not available in my area.

Subtitling has many different uses. Whether it’s for a school project or a movie presntation, if the voices in a movie isn’t clear, or you just want to make it easier to understand, subtitles come in handy. I know there are a lot of guides on how to make guides out there, but I’ll be focusing on how to use one of the most powerful editors available, Aegisub. Download it at Main Page - Aegisub Wiki

Aegisub is not your only choice; I’ve used Gaupol Subtitle Editor, Subtitle Workshop, Jubler Subtitle Editor, and a myriad of other less well-known editors. I’ve stuck with Jubler and Gaupol for a while, but Jubler was too hard to customize, and Gaupol requires Python 2.5.1 and PyGTK 2.10 installed. So if you add all the Gaupol requirements together that’s over 100MB. I’m sticking with Aegisub because it was specially to subtitle anime (no, I don’t illegally fansub anime) so all you ever need is available. I haven’t anything else very special to share, so I’ll just share my guide on how to do the basics in it.

A tutorial can be found at their official site at Main Page - Aegisub Manual but it’s very long, and is still under construction. I have done to the best of my ability to take screenshots and make everything as easy as possible. This is my first time making a huge tutorial with so many screenshots so please forgive me for any ambiguity and some lack of professionalism. I am still learning the more advanced functions, so unless you really want fancy subtitles, the basics shall be enough to satisfy you.

But subtitling alone has no use, so I will also show you show to add subtitles and how to softsub and hardsub. To hardsub you need to also have VirtualDub or VirtualDubMod, and a plugin for it called VSFilter. To softsub you need MKVToolnix.

II. Adding subtitles
So, let’s have a simple beginning. Since we’re all going to have a different video, use the dummy video built-in if you wish, or open your own video. A black blank video is available at YouTube - Black Screen (starring Black screen) lol. (If you only want a voice, convert your video into mp3 or wav, and open that.) Go to the top Video->Open Dummy Video. You can pick color you want it to be, how big, etc. Finish, and click continue. I’ll choose 25 frame rate and 50000 frames. Now it should look like this:

There are also lots of different buttons next to the video. I’ll go over them in a while, they can make the subtitles have special angles.

Let’s start and put something in the textbox. Write whatever you want in it, and then change the start time and end time to what you want. Remember, start time should be before end time. After pressing Commit or Enter, there should be a first line on the bottom, and a new blank line.

Continue to fill in the subtitles for what you want, and remember to have different starting and ending times! (Did you know you can have multiple subtitles in the same frame? Aegisub will think it’s a problem and highlight the line in red, but it’s OK. Handy for getting in an author’s note at the top.)

The subtitles don’t have to immediately come after one another either. Line 1 can suddenly go to Line 4 and switch back to Line 3. It’s all determined by the timing. Another tip is to group your subtitles together, like a group for all the standard subtitles, a group for author’s notes, etc. This becomes convenient for the Styling Assisstant.

After you finished, you should have a few lines along with the different times. Mine is at

An important feature are line breaks. If you need to insert this huge line, just insert a \N and continue typing. So you should type \Nline to have “line” as the word on the next row.

Experiment as much as you want!

When you’re done and satisfied, click the Play button.

III. Styles
Now for the special subtitle effects. But first, let’s make our subtitles less plain. Click on the Styles Manager (the red S at the top, #1 on the picture I gave for the interface) and a window should come up.

On the top, there’s a bar saying Default. This is the catalog of available storages. In short, a simple library of your fonts. You can label your storages so they’ll have the special fonts, like “School Projects” or “Movie Presentation” and they’ll have the storage of all the fonts you need.

Let’s make a new storage. Click New at the top and enter what you want the storage to be. Make it meaningful if you plan to use it multiple times. I named mine Tutorial. Now there should be two choices in the bar.

Obviously it’s a new storage so you need some fonts. Pick the Tutorial storage, and in the left panel, select New on the bottom. A new window should pop up.

Style Name: What your font will be called. You can make it “Default subtitles” or “Author’s Note.”

Font: What font your text will look like. It’s currently Arial, so change it to what you want it to be. Then choose the size at the right, and on the bottom are effect options.

Colors: These are very useful. Primary is what your main color will be. If you’re doing karaoke subtitles and want to change color, the secondary color should be different. And different fonts have different color matches, so experiment a bit.

Outline: The border of the words. It’s preferable if it’s black.

Shadow: How much shadow you want at the back. Different fonts call for different shadows.

The margins determine how much your subtitles can fit on a line before it automatically goes to another row, and how far it is from the top or bottom. It’s generally a good idea to bring the subtitles vertically a few pixels down or up so there’s no cut.

Alignment is where your subtitles are located. By default, it’s in the middle bottom of the video. 1 puts it at the bottom left, 9 at the top right, etc.

On the bottom of those options are a number and 2 arrows. They determine transparency.

The left side has Outline and Shadow. Change those number to change how much outline and shadow you want.

The bottom of that has more options, they just determine scaling size and encoding. Skip that unless you really know what you’re doing. It’s not going to cause a crash, but most people generally won’t need it.

The preview let’s you test what the text will look like. Type what you want on the bottom and see how it turns out.

Make a few fonts, and when you’re ready, go back to the Style Manager window.

Highlight the fonts in the storage panel one by one or using Ctrl+Click and click Copy to current script -> on the bottom. Then the current script should contain those fonts. And unless you want a Default font, you can delete it.

Click close on the bottom, then highlight the first line on your subtitle, then click the blue S on the top, #7 on my first interface picture. The Styling Assisstant should come out.

Just click at what you want each subtitle style to be. If you grouped them together just press Enter until you need to change the style. Use the shortcuts as needed.

If you’re satisfied, click the play button again and watch how your dummy video has changed.

IV. Special subtitle effects
Lots of times you’ll want your subtitles in different areas. With the buttons next to video area, you can also change that.

1. Standard mode - Regular view, with the crosshairs (mine are at (300,250))
2. Drag subtitle - Self-Explanatory, drag it around the screen to where you want it, and the position will save. You should also see a special * symbol on any line you made an effect to.
3. Z-axis rotation - Gives somewhat of an “aerial” view, in my opinion.
4. X and Y axis rotation - By far my most favorite. You can make the subtitles seem 3D. Excellent for pasting on parts where it’s not directly a flat surface.
5. Scale subtitles - Change the size of your subtitles. You get a X and Y axis as a reference.
6. Clip to rectangle - Clip a part of your subtitles to a rectangle. The rest of the parts don’t show up.
7. Clip to vector - Clips to a vector area. Fun to blur out certain parts of the subtitle.
8. Toggle display - Change whether you see the changes on the video or not. I recommend having this on.
9. The manual. Pretty complicated, but extremely comprehensive if you’re willing to spend a couple of hours experimenting and digesting.

So do what you want with them, be creative XD I certainly did.

V. Saving and playing on videos
Woohoo you’re pretty much done now. However, you still need to save, and collect fonts if they’re uncommon. Let’s do that.
Open the Font button for Fonts collector. First, check fonts for availability. It might take a while. If there’s no problem, Copy fonts to folder. If you DO have a problem… well… check if your fonts are still existent.
Copy them to a folder, and then close the window.

Aegisub only supports saving in Advanced SubStation, or .
.......
Dare I say? XD
.ass extension. <—Please don’t report, I had to XD
However, it supports exporting in many subtitle formats. However, .as* is the most functional and supports the most features. We’ll save to .as* but you can export if you wish.

Save it somewhere on your PC.

Oh yes, I also recommend you show file extensions on your computer. To do so, go to explorer, then Tools ->Folder Options ->View tab -> Uncheck “Hide extensions for known file types” Press OK, and you’re done. If you already have it, you’re awesome!

If you want to view how your subtitles come out, get a video (preferrably .avi, I don’t know about any other kinds) and name either the subtitle of video file to the same name. So if your filename is ILikePie.ass or ILikePie.avi, change the other one so it’s the same. Remember not to touch the file extension though.

If you use Windows, get CCCP at Combined Community Codec Pack
If you use Linux, get MPlayer at MPlayer - The Movie Player

Now play your video file, and if you did it right, your video should have the subtitles playing.

VI. Softsubbing
Get MKVToolnix at mkvtoolnix—Matroska tools for Linux/Unix and Windows

Install it somewhere, then open mkvmerge GUI. Something should pop up.

At the Input tab, click add, and add your .ass and video file. If your video isn’t supported, convert it to .avi.

Now go to the Attachments tab, and add in all your fonts. Make sure none of them are .fon extensions. If they are, find the font in your folder and change the extension to .ttf. Now go to to the bottom and pick where you want to save your .mkv or .mks file (.mkv is more universal, I have never seen a .mks used before). Click Start Muxing when you’re done. If everything is well, you should have it now. Click on it to play. It will take a bit longer to render, so be aware of that.

Congrats! You have gotten yourself a softsub!

(Note: Matroska is a very special type of video. It’s a CONTAINER of the audio and subtitle streams. Meaning you won’t be able to get sound or subtitles if you just upload it to YouTube. For that you need to hardsub, explained below 😛)

VII. Softsubbing
Download VirtualDub at Welcome to virtualdub.org! - virtualdub.org or VirtualDubMod at VirtualDubMod Hompage
VirtualDubMod has improved AviSynth integration, but I don’t think that means anything to you yet

Then download VSFilter at http://boxstr.com/files/2154275_3fngg/textsub.vdf
You should have the VirtualDub folder. Open it, and there should be a folder called plugins.

Go into the plugins folder, and put in your textsub.vdf.

Now open VirtualDub.exe. The first time something should pop up, asking about an installation. Agree to it, and then it should go to the main window. If not, click VirtualDub.exe again.

Click File ->Open, and load the .avi file.

Now go to Video ->Filters. (By the way, if it’s not already, make sure you’re in Full Processing Mode). A window pops up, click Add…

You should get a list of filters. You want the one that says TextSub, with Gabest on the other side. (Note: Gabest created Media Player Classic 😛) Click that, and a file browser appears. Click the subtitle file you want.

Now the original blank window should say something like [##x##] Textsub [Subtitle file lcoation].

Click OK. Now play your output file. (The button at the right.) If all is well, you should have the subtitles show up!
If your video is too big, and only the input shows, go to View. You should have the option of Input video pane and Output video pane. You can disable the Input pane altogether, or choose to Swap input/output panes.

If you’re happy, go to Video ->Compression, and choose a codec. I very very very strongly recommend you get Xvid at Xvid.org:// Downloads it’s one of the best compressors around. Picture at

If you think you’re ready, go to File ->Save as AVI and save it somewhere. It might take a while, so be ready.

When it’s done, you’re done, click to play it.

Congratulations! You have learned how to subtitle a video, as well as how to play and softsub and hardsub!

I really liked making this tutorial, and I hope it was clear and simple for you. I know I haven’t covered karaoke scripts, but maybe I will if I learn and someone wants to know too. :D

I am done with the tutorial now! Please feel free to give feedback and questions, and I will try my best to resolve them! I also hope you learned something that will help you in the future! 😉

This is an amazing tutorial!  I knew some people who did subtitling, but I never personally did any of it—I always pawned the work off onto them 😛

Thank you for taking the time to paste this all out—I have not tried it myself but I will later in the week when I have some more time.  Good luck with all your subtitling!