Find and replace

The Search panel finds and replaces text in your subtitles. It stays open along the bottom of the window while you work, with the search options on the left and the results on the right.

Opening the panelCopy Anchor Link

• Edit › Find (Ctrl+F) opens it on the Find tab.
• Edit › Find and replace (Ctrl+H) opens it on the Replace tab.

Either one puts the cursor in Search text. Text you selected in the Line editor becomes the search text. Pressing the same key again closes the panel and goes back to the Line editor.

Edit › Find next (F3) repeats the last search, even with the panel closed.

FindingCopy Anchor Link

Type the text and press Enter, or click Find. The next match's line becomes the active line, and the match is selected in the Line editor, ready to edit. Press Enter or F3 again for the one after it.

When the search reaches the last line, it asks whether to Search from the start. If nothing matches anywhere, a notice says so.

Comment lines are skipped unless Include comments is on, and lines hidden by the Grid's filter are always skipped.

OptionsCopy Anchor Link

In field chooses what to search: the Text, or the Styles, Actor or Effect field. In Translation mode, Text covers both the original and the translation.

Lines chooses where:

• All lines from the first.
• Selected lines only.
• From selected: from the first selected line to the end.

The Styles field beside it limits the search to lines of the styles you list, separated by commas. Choose styles lists them with their line counts to tick.

ReplacingCopy Anchor Link

On the Replace tab, type the new text in Replace with.

• Replace next (Enter in Replace with) replaces the selected match and finds the next one. Each click is one undo step. If the text has changed since it was found, it searches again rather than overwrite something else.
• Replace all replaces every match in the chosen lines as one undo step, then says how many it replaced. With Selected lines and a style list, a line must be both selected and of a listed style.
• Replace in all open subtitles does the same in every open tab, one undo step per tab.

Listing every matchCopy Anchor Link

On the Find tab, Find all in current subtitles and Find in all open subtitles list the matches on the right, under each tab's name, as Line N: with the match marked. Double-click a row to go to that line.

Every row starts ticked. Untick the ones to leave alone, or use Check all and Uncheck all, then type the new text under the list and click Replace. Lines you edited since the search are skipped and noted in the Log. Click a header to fold its rows.

Searching filesCopy Anchor Link

The In files tab searches subtitle files on disk, open or not:

• Catalog is the folder. The folder button picks it.
• Filters chooses the files, such as *.ass; *.srt. Left empty, it searches ASS, SRT, SUB, TXT and MPL2 files.
• Search in subfolders and Search in hidden folders go deeper.

Find in subtitles lists the matches under each file's path. Double-click one to open the file at that line.

Replace in subtitles changes the files on disk. It asks first, because Undo cannot bring them back. Before it changes a file, it puts a copy in a ReplaceBackup folder beside your settings. Only files with a match are written, and they are saved as UTF-8.

Regular expressionsCopy Anchor Link

With Regular expressions on, the search text is a pattern. . is any character, \d a digit, (…) a group, | either side, and so on.

In Replace with, \1 to \9 insert a group, and & the whole match. Write \& for a plain &.

For example, to turn Mr. and Mrs. into Mr and Mrs, search for (Mrs?)\. and replace with \1.

A pattern with a mistake is not searched: a notice gives the error.

KeysCopy Anchor Link

Edit › Select lines selects lines by their text in a window of its own, without replacing anything.