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Translate captions in Premiere Pro

Automatically translate captions generated in Adobe Premiere Pro or imported via caption sidecar files (like .srt) to improve the accessibility and reach of your content.

Quickly translate captions to make your content accessible to a global audience. Use Speech to Text to generate captions, then translate them into multiple languages. Customize translations as needed to ensure accuracy and clarity. For faster editing, you can use these keyboard shortcuts.

How to translate your captions?

Before you begin:

To translate captions, first create them by doing the following:

  1. After importing your media, open the Text panel and select Transcribe to generate a transcript. Or, enable automatic transcription while importing your media under Import settings.
  2. Convert the transcript into captions.
  1. To create captions, select the Create captions   icon on the header of Transcript tab. Or, directly go to the Captions tab and select Create captions from the transcript

    Tip:

    You can also drag and drop a new caption file for your media (like an SRT file) into the Timeline panel.

  2. Select the Translate captions   icon in the Captions tab. Or, select the more menu   icon and select Translate captions. Or, you can right-click on the header of the caption track and select Translate captions from the context menu.

    UI shows the three workflows to translate captions.
    A. Translate through the Translate captions icon B. Translate caption through the More menu C. Translate captions through the context menu.

  3. Choose the language you want your captions translated into and select Translate.

  4. The captions will be translated using cloud service and third-party translation models (Google Translate and Microsoft Translator), and a new track will be created in the Timeline panel. The progress of the translation is displayed in the Progress panel and on the track item. 

  5. Select the eye   icon for each corresponding language track to display all the captions on the Program Monitor.

  6. You can then select and style the captions using the options in the Properties panel. Once you are done styling, apply the style to all captions in the track by selecting the Redefine style   icon in the Properties panel and selecting All captions on track.

    Click Redefine styles and then apply styles to all captions on track.

Managing multiple caption tracks

Select the eyeball   icon to hide or unhide tracks in the Program Monitor and Text panel.

Option + click (macOS) or Alt + click (Windows) to isolate a specific caption track. It makes the selected track visible while muting all others. Pressing the same shortcut again on the same track will mute it.

When you enable multiple caption tracks, only the active ones appear in the Text panel.
Captions will only appear in the Text panel when a single track is active. They will not be shown in the text panel. if there are multiple active tracks

Translation model

The attributions for all translated captions appear at the bottom of the Text panel. However, they will not be displayed when multiple captions are active.

Service attributions are listed at the bottom of the text panel.
The translation engine used is listed at the bottom of the Text panel.

Note:

You can provide feedback on the quality and accuracy of the translation or report it for being problematic or offensive by selecting the feedback   icon at the bottom-left corner of the Captions tab and rating or reporting the content.

Export caption tracks

After styling the captions, you can export captions based on your preferences:

Burn-in captions

When captions are burned with multiple caption tracks enabled, active caption tracks in the timeline become visible. While exporting, the captions are shown under Captions > Caption Tracks.



Burn in the captions in the track regardless of format, as they will be printed in the video
Burn in the captions in the track regardless of format, as they will be rendered directly on the video file.

Embed captions

Embed in Export File options supports only the following caption formats:


  • All channels for CEA-608
  • All channels for CEA-708
  • Only one Caption Stream for OP-47

You can choose the compatible format option available in the timelines.


Sidecar export with .scc extension

.scc only supports 608 tracks, so the list will only show the available 608 tracks in the sequence.

By default, if the timeline has 608 equal streams, they are auto-selected based on the number of streams from the lowest to the highest track number. However, the system does not select two equal streams simultaneously.

Sidecar export with .mcc extension

Since .mcc only supports 608 and 708 tracks, the sequence shows only the available 608 or 708 tracks. By default, if the timeline has the same 608 and 708 streams, they are auto-selected based on the number of streams from the lowest to the highest track number. You can export 608 and 708 tracks all at once.

Sidecar export with .xml export extension

.xml only supports 608, 708, Teletext, EBU Subtitle, and Australian OP-47. The dropdown under Export settings only lets you choose one track from all the different formats supported by .xml

This configuration allows you to export only one track at a time.

Sidecar export with .stl export extension

.stl only supports Teletext, EBU Subtitle, and Australian OP-47.

It supports one stream at a time, so the caption track format shows all the supported tracks available in the sequence. You can then choose one stream to export at a time.

Sidecar export with .srt export extension

While the .srt extension only supports one stream per file, it can support multiple formats, such as:


  • 608
  • 708
  • Teletext
  • EBU
  • Australian
  • Subtitle

The track that is active in the timeline is automatically selected as a default. If there are two or more tracks enabled, the one with the lowest number of tracks is selected.


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If you have questions about translating captions in Premiere Pro, reach out to us in our Premiere Pro community. We would love to help.

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