CaptionKit Tutorial : Overview

Overview » Starting a new project » Using the caption list » Publishing your project

The CaptionKit Software is available now. You can view the help files here, which have full details about how to produce subtitled media using CaptionKit.

Publishing your captions occurs in 3 steps :

• Create or open a saved video or audio track
• Load CaptionKit and add scenes, actors and captions
• Click the Kit's "publish" button to save your project

This picture shows the main CaptionKit screen in use. Descriptions of the screen areas follow below.

Video Preview Caption Entry Colour Pallette Caption List Actor List

1. Video Preview

The preview area will show your chosen video content, and can play Real Player, Windows Media Player or Quicktime content.

There are also convenience play, pause and stop buttons. You can control the video position by using the slider just below the video window.

2. Caption Entry

This area is for entering captions onto the caption list. When you press the 'Mark' button, a timecode is recorded from the video.

Pressing the 'Caption' button pauses the video and allows you to enter any speech or sound effects. Pressing 'Continue' clears the box ready for the next subtitle to be entered. You can also use the keys F7-F9 as quick shortcuts.

3. Colour Pallette

Each actor in the actor list can have a colour used for their spoken dialogue. This is optional but can be of help to viewers in distinguishing changes of speaker where it's not obvious, especially in fast-moving dialogue.

Please be aware some viewers may have limited colour perception. We have chosen 216 web-safe colours for you to pick from for this reason, as they are quite distinct against many backgrounds.

4. Caption List

The main list of captions : As you add captions, they are show in time-order on this list. The caption list has a number of easy navigation features.

These include 'jump to timecode' (which moves the video position to the caption's timecode) and handy edit / delete buttons for quick changes and error correction.

5. Actor List

The actor list maintains a list of the speakers in your presentation. Enter a new actor (voice) by typing their name into the 'New actor' box and pressing 'Add actor'.

You can also edit the name and text colour of each actor, which applies to all captions spoken by them. It can be ordered by A-Z, most recently used, and most frequent speaker in the presentation.