Export SRT or VTT subtitles

A subtitle file is a separate text file of timed captions that a player or a site like YouTube shows over the video, and that viewers can turn off. Rooster writes the two common formats.

Export a subtitle file

1. Choose File > Export… (⇧⌘E), or press Export at the top of the editor.
2. Under Format, choose SRT captions (.srt) or VTT captions (.vtt). If you are not sure, choose SRT: almost everything reads it.
3. Press Choose destination and export… and choose where to save it.

What is in the file

• Your caption cards, if the project has them, with every correction you made.
• Captions built from the transcript, if it does not. You do not need to generate captions first, but the transcript must come from transcribing the recording: a script you typed has no timings, and its subtitle file comes out empty.
• Timed to the edited video. Cuts are applied, so the file matches the video you exported.
• Speaker names, where you labelled speakers, on a line before what they say. A VTT file also marks the speaker the way the format expects.

Each card is wrapped to its style's line length.

A clean video and a subtitle file

To give a site both, export the video with Burn captions into the picture turned off, then export SRT or VTT separately. See Export a video.

When there is nothing to export

If the project has no words yet, the export sheet says so and the button is off. Transcribe the recording first.