Subtitling Tips

Subtitling is a unique skill set: volunteers must accurately convey meaning, despite time and space constraints.

To ensure viewers can read your subtitles with ease, stick to these guidelines:

• When a subtitle is longer than 42 characters, break it into two lines.
• Never use more than two lines per subtitle.
• Keep broken lines as close in length as possible.
• Keep 'linguistic wholes' together when breaking lines.
• Keep the subtitle reading speed at a maximum of 21 characters / second.
• Compress subtitles over 21 characters / second. Try to preserve as much meaning as possible.

The following guides elaborate on the rules and techniques mentioned above:

• How to break lines
• How to compress subtitles

Refer to this “Quick Tips” list as you’re subtitling to remind yourself of these points

Tutorials

Platform guides

• CaptionHub Resource Center
• CaptionHub Zendesk
• TED terms and conditions