Convert Subtitles to Title Case
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Five named rules live behind this one box, and each has a page of its own: UPPERCASE and lowercase rewrite every letter, title case capitalises each word and leaves the small ones (a, the, of) alone, sentence case lowers the line first and then rebuilds the sentence starts, and Capitalise each line changes only the first letter of each line. This page fills the box in with the rule its title names and lists no other, so the file this page produces is the one the page is about.
Which frame rate the timings are counted in. On the format pages this is what MicroDVD needs, because it stores timing as frame numbers. On the frame rate pages it is the rate the file was timed against — the version the subtitles were made for — and the page's second box takes the rate of the video you are going to use them with. 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30, 50, 59.94 and 60 are the common ones. Getting it wrong shifts the whole timeline, and on the frame rate pages it shifts it by a ratio rather than by a fixed amount.
This page gives every subtitle line title case: each word takes a capital, and the small words in the middle — a, the, of, and, to and their neighbours — stay lowercase. Headings, chapter titles, song titles and on-screen titles in a documentary all want this treatment, and a file that arrived in one uniform case has none of it.
Two rules shape the output and both are visible in the examples below. The first and last word of a line are always capitalised, even when they are small words, which is why `the way to go to` comes out as `The Way to Go To`. And a word that already carries a capital after its first letter is left completely alone, so `iPhone`, `NASA` and `McDonald's` survive a run over a mixed file. That second rule is also the reason a file written entirely in capitals comes back unchanged — every word in it counts as one this page will not touch, and the page that fixes those is sentence case.
Hyphens start a new word and apostrophes do not. `well-known` becomes `Well-Known`, while `don't` becomes `Don't` rather than `Don'T`, because a capital after an apostrophe would break the word apart in the reader's eye. This is applied line by line: a cue with two lines gets two independently capitalised lines, and a cue holding a sentence is not treated as one.
Nothing is uploaded. The file is parsed and rewritten inside the browser tab, so material that must not leave the machine does not leave it, and the page reads the twelve supported formats as what they actually contain rather than trusting the extension. A file whose lines are already in title case comes back byte for byte.
Examples
Two lines that want a heading feel
Input
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
the end of the world
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
a night to remember
Output
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
The End of the World
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
A Night to Remember
Every word takes a capital except the small ones — `the`, `of`, `to` — and the opening word keeps its capital even though it appears on that small-word list. The second cue shows the same rule from the other side: `a` is capitalised because it opens the line, while `to` in the middle stays lowercase.
Small words at the start and end of a line
Input
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
the way to go to
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
out of the blue
Output
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
The Way to Go To
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
Out of the Blue
The first cue ends on `to` and the second starts with `out` — the two positions where a small word is capitalised anyway. Read on its own the first line looks odd, and that is what the rule is: title case applied to each line, so the last word of every cue takes a capital whether or not it is a small word.
Names, acronyms and hyphenated words
Input
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
the iPhone and a well-known don't-care test
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
NASA in the USA
Output
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
The iPhone and a Well-Known Don't-Care Test
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
NASA in the USA
`iPhone` keeps its inner capital and `NASA` and `USA` are left alone completely, because a word with a capital after its first letter is one this page refuses to touch — that is the whole reason brand names survive. Hyphenated words take a capital on each part, while an apostrophe does not start a part, which is why the first cue reads `Don't-Care` rather than `Don'T-Care`.
A file already in capitals
Input
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
THE ROOM IS DARK
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
AND THE LIGHT IS ON
Output
1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:02,000
THE ROOM IS DARK
2
00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:04,000
AND THE LIGHT IS ON
Unchanged, and that is the intended behaviour rather than a failure. Every word here already has a capital after its first letter, so every word counts as one to leave alone. If this is the file you have, the page you want is sentence case, which lowers each line first and then rebuilds it.
Frequently asked questions
Which words does title case leave in lowercase?
The usual short connectors: a, an, and, as, at, but, by, for, from, in, into, nor, of, on, onto, or, over, per, the, to, up, via and with. Two positions override that list — the first and last word of a line are always capitalised, so `the way to go to` becomes `The Way to Go To` even though `the` and `to` are on it. The list is deliberately short and fixed rather than clever, so the same file always produces the same output.
Why did a file in capitals come back completely unchanged?
Because title case refuses to touch a word that already has a capital after its first letter, and every word in an all-caps line qualifies — `DARK` has one. That rule is what protects `iPhone`, `NASA` and `McDonald's` in a mixed file, and the all-caps file is its other face. The run reports nothing changed, which is the honest answer; sentence case is the page that turns a shouting file back into normal text.
How are hyphenated words and apostrophes treated?
A hyphen starts a new word, so `well-known` becomes `Well-Known` and each part is capitalised on its own. An apostrophe does not, so `don't` becomes `Don't` and not `Don'T` — capitalising after an apostrophe would split a contraction that the reader sees as one word. The same distinction applies to possessives, so `the director's cut` becomes `The Director's Cut`.
Is this the same as capitalising the first letter of each line?
No, and the two produce visibly different files. Capitalising the first letter touches one character per line, so `the room is dark` becomes `The room is dark`. Title case touches every word, so the same line becomes `The Room Is Dark`. If you have a whole file that needs a heading feel, this is the page; if only the line openings are wrong, the other one makes a far smaller change to everything else.
Can I keep a particular word lowercase, such as a company name written in lower case?
Not with a setting — there is no exception list to edit on this page and nowhere in a subtitle file to store one. The practical route is to run the file and then find and replace that one spelling back to what it should be. A word already carrying an inner capital, like `iPhone`, is safe automatically; a deliberately lowercase brand name is not, and will come out capitalised.
Does title case work on non-English scripts?
On anything with a notion of upper and lower case: Latin scripts with their accents, Greek, Cyrillic and most others. Scripts without capitals — Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Hebrew and Arabic among them — come back unchanged, which is correct rather than a failure, since there is no second case to switch into. Turkish and Azerbaijani readers should check the dotted and dotless i afterwards, because the default browser rules are applied rather than the locale-specific ones.