TXT to SRT Converter
Paste your text and download an .srt file. If your lines start with a time, like [01:23] or 00:29-00:31, the converter keeps those times. Plain text gets times estimated from its length, which is fine for a short script. For an hour of speech, the times have to come from the audio, because a text file has nothing to time them from.
By Eman Khoubian, Founder & CEO
6 subtitles ending at 00:00:22, using the times in your text
1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,917 Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in. Where did the idea start? 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Speaker 2: It started as a weekend experiment. 3 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:12,738 We wanted subtitles for our own videos, and every tool we tried asked for the 4 00:00:12,821 --> 00:00:15,917 audio before it would give us a single line. 5 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:17,500 Speaker 1: And now? 6 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,125 Speaker 2: Now it's most of what we do all week.
Nothing is uploaded.
What's the difference between TXT and SRT?
A TXT file is only words. An SRT file is the same words cut into numbered subtitles, each with the time it appears, the time it disappears, and a blank line after it.
The same line as TXT and as SRT
Renaming notes.txt to notes.srt only works if the text is already in those blocks. Otherwise the name changes and nothing shows on screen. WebVTT, the web's version, is the same idea, but it uses a period instead of a comma before the milliseconds and puts WEBVTT on the first line.
Which times does the converter keep?
Any time at the start of a line. These all work:
[01:23] Speaker 1: Hi, the way WhisperAI's TXT export writes it with Timestamps on. 01:23 is minutes and seconds; past an hour it's 01:02:03.00:29-00:31 Hi, a start and an end. Someone on Reddit's r/editors had a whole transcript like this and was given a Notepad++ find-and-replace pattern to run. Paste it here instead.01:23 - Hior(01:23) Hi.00:00:01,240 --> 00:00:04,100, an SRT or VTT pasted back in to re-break its lines.
Text under a time belongs to it until the next time. When one speaker talks for a long stretch (a "turn"), it's cut into several subtitles. Longer pieces get more time, and the last one ends before the next timestamp.
One 12-second turn becomes three subtitles
If one of your times makes a subtitle faster than 20 characters a second (Netflix's limit for adult viewers), the converter warns you. It doesn't change your time.
Untick Keep speaker names for subtitles people watch, and leave it ticked for a transcript people read. If your editing timeline begins at 01:00:00, put that in Start at and it's added to every subtitle (more on timestamps and timecode).
How is plain text timed?
First the text is cut into subtitles: whole sentences where they fit, short sentences grouped together, and at most two lines of 42 characters, Netflix's line length for English, unless you change Characters per line. A long sentence breaks at a comma when one fits.
Then each one gets a time. Enter the video's length and the subtitles are spread across it by how much text each has. Leave the length empty and each one stays on screen for 0.375 seconds a word, never under 5/6 of a second or over 7 seconds. That's 160 words a minute, the slow end of the BBC's subtitle speed. Between subtitles there's an 83-millisecond gap, 2 frames at 24 fps.
Where does the .srt go next?
On YouTube, add it as a subtitle file. YouTube takes .srt in plain UTF-8, which is what this page downloads. In Premiere Pro, drag the .srt from the Project panel into your sequence and it becomes a caption track.
To fix one time, open the .srt in any text editor and change the numbers on the line with the arrow (-->), keeping the comma before the milliseconds.
Subtitles timed from the speech
If you have the recording, skip the text file. Transcribe it in WhisperAI and export SRT: every subtitle gets its start and end from the speech, already cut to 42 characters a line. The free plan gives you 5 minutes a month, SRT included, with no card. Every plan takes files up to 5 GB, and Business Pro is $24.99 a month for unlimited minutes.
Got a script for a YouTube video? Add it in YouTube Studio with Auto-sync. YouTube then syncs the words to the speech. They must be in the language spoken. YouTube doesn't recommend it for videos over an hour or with poor audio quality.