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nullinvoid
21st May 2003, 18:47
I have a number of subtitle scripts in Excel that I need to get into SSA format. SSA will import the dialogue from a text file just fine, but I'm looking for a way to include the character name data as well so I don't have to cut and paste or re-enter it in SSA. Any suggestions?

GrofLuigi
23rd May 2003, 00:35
I am not sure if I entirely understand what you want, but you could try puting colon (:) after the name, which will put that text in the NAME field. But that also means that you should watch for any colons already present in the text file, which is how I found out about this :)

But I think you can add them later in SSA.

Another trick in SSA: if you don't want part of your text displayed, enclose it in these brackets {I don't know how they are called} - not square, but wiggled :}

Greetz

GL

DaveF71
24th May 2003, 21:01
I do this all the time. Open up your script file in Excel, and then save it as a tab-delineated text file. Open the text file in your text editor of choice. Highlight one of the gaps between a name and the subtitle text mouse and hit control-c. Open up the editor's replace function, click in the "text to replace" area, and hit control-v to paste the tab into the box. Then type in a colon in the "replace with" box and do a global replace. Save the text file and import it into Substation Alpha, and you'll have all your fields.

unmei
26th May 2003, 12:09
now you made me curious...
are there many people using Excel for subtitling on a regular basis ?

if so, would you want Excel to USF conversion ?
i think i could include that in the USF editor i'm about to write, but i only gonna do it if people had a use for it..

DaveF71
1st June 2003, 07:09
I just use it as a sort of delivery/approval format. The columns
make it easy to read and add comments.

nullinvoid
11th June 2003, 00:34
Thanks for the help! That will make things a bit easier.

I think a fair number of people doing commercial anime translation probably use Excel at one point in the process. The flexibility enables you to define columns for the original text, literal translation, dub rewrite, sub rewrite, comments and so on. I also needed to use Excel in order to format the dub scripts to load into a proprietary software package used by the recording studio.

DaveF71
11th June 2003, 02:19
Originally posted by nullinvoid
Thanks for the help! That will make things a bit easier.

I think a fair number of people doing commercial anime translation probably use Excel at one point in the process. The flexibility enables you to define columns for the original text, literal translation, dub rewrite, sub rewrite, comments and so on. I also needed to use Excel in order to format the dub scripts to load into a proprietary software package used by the recording studio.

Yup, same here. The clients wanted the original sub translation in
one column, my translator notes in another, and the dub rewrite in
yet another, along with the usual timecode info.

The one obnoxious thing about Excel is the way it handles line breaks
inside cells. I wanted the text inside Excel to match my subtitle
text exactly, so I wanted to retain the line breaks. If you hit
ALT+TAB inside a text cell, it'll start a new line inside the cell.
Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a sort of special character
that you can include in a text file that you're importing into Excel
to trigger these breaks. I've been told that it can only be done
inside Excel itself. Is this right?