Software » Subtitle » Subtitle Edit 5.4.0

v5.4.0 (6th of November 2026)

Subtitle Edit 5.4 collects the work of 12 betas and 4 release candidates.
A summary of the changes since v5.3.0 (full details in the pre-release entries below):

Look and feel:
* A more compact and polished UI - almost all windows redesigned in one modern editor look, with live theme switching
* New SVG icons in all themes and the About window, sharp at any display scale
* New themes: Nord, Midnight Cinema and Sakura - Pastel and Nord also get their own icon sets
* Visual theme picker with preview cards (Settings > Appearance) and a "Cycle theme" shortcut
* Background art for the video player and waveform (new art for the Classic theme too)
* One field look for text boxes, combo boxes and lists; UI font size in px, followed by dialog text
* More consistent dialogs: Escape, button order (Cancel left, OK right), error icons; layout thumbnails in theme colors
* Full screen video controls fade in over the video and are bigger, also on native players

New features:
* Sync subtitle to audio (ffsubsync-style offset and frame rate detection) and Sync audio track with live preview
* YouTube timed text (.ytt/srv3): pens, positions, preview and a styles window
* Export D-Cinema SMPTE 2014 as MXF track file, and Excel dialogue list (.xlsx) with chosen columns
* Check for updates: install and restart (Windows installer, Linux tarball, macOS)
* Custom error rules (regex), auto-wrap while typing, and reload/ask when the file is changed by another program
* Record speech to the text box via microphone (off by default)
* Bookmarks list: import and export
* Many new shortcuts: split line and play, move lines one frame, push-neighbour "Move start/end X ms", copy plain text

Video player and waveform:
* Optional playback speed, previous/next subtitle and toggle subtitles buttons
* FFmpeg player subtitle overlay closer to the mpv preview; faster layout 14 timeline
* Waveform: ASSA lines with the same times move and resize together; pause when stepping one frame

Auto-translate and AI:
* Source and translation side by side, translate selected rows together with context, find and replace in the translation column
* New Opper engine, Bing Region field, llama.cpp CPU/Vulkan builds on Linux, and Generate with AI for the synopsis

OCR:
* Optional video preview in the OCR window, Video OCR of chosen time ranges, keep existing lines in video OCR
* New llama.cpp OCR models: LightOnOCR-3 (4B/0.8B), LFM3-VL 2B and QARI-OCR (Arabic)
* nOCR: many recognition improvements for Latin and Cyrillic; fixed OCR replace list rules in 10 languages

Subtitle formats and export:
* SubRip reader rewritten: tolerant of damaged files, 2.6-12x faster; parser crashes found by fuzzing fixed
* Image-based export draws ASSA lines with their own style and many more ASSA tags (also in Batch convert and seconv)
* Blu-ray sup: HDR (BT.2020 PQ) palette option and smarter palette split
* Remux video: CEA-608/708 as SEI captions in .mp4, caption time offset for .scc/.mcc
* iTunes Timed Text export presets and header template

ASSA:
* ASSA draw: text and shapes, groups, in/out and loop animations, many new (also animated) clip arts
* CapCut-style "Apply advanced effect" gallery with six new caption effects
* Styles, properties, attachments, Set position and Set background redesigned; fonts from [Fonts] previewed

Tools and editing:
* Multiple replace works like SE4: categories, flat rule list with type-in row, "Add rules" window, edit in place
* Spell check: remove words from the dictionary; editable word list regex
* Batch convert: run batch-capable plugins, search box for functions, plain text options
* Get plugins: search box and a bigger window

Translations and engines:
* All language files synced with English; new Romanian and Croatian UI translations
* Updated engines: Crisp ASR v0.8.50, llama.cpp b12110, CrispEmbed v0.17.14, audio.cpp v0.9.4, Qwen3 ASR v0.1.11, yt-dlp 2026.10.26 and Avalonia 12.1.5

A big thank you to everyone who tested the pre-releases, reported issues and
contributed code and translations :)

v5.4.0-rc4 (5th of November 2026)

* Image-based export: draw ASSA lines with their own style (also in Batch convert and seconv)
* Image-based export: support ASSA \r, \rStyle, \fsp, \blur, \be, \fscx, \fscy, \frz, underline and strikeout
* Image-based export: an undrawable ASSA tag no longer drops the line's italic/bold/colour/font
* Copy plain text keeps an empty line between lines (like SE4) - thx OmrSi
* Fix Go to video position ignoring the video offset - thx accessallareas
* Fix OCR to ASSA losing line breaks and tagging tall bottom text as middle - thx robinfire110
* Fix Improve time codes preview playing the default audio track - thx VaLvOnAuTa1981
* Update llama.cpp to b12110
* Update CrispEmbed to v0.17.14
* Update Whisper.cpp advanced-parameter help to 1.9.5 - thx GitGianluc
* Update translations: new strings in all languages (machine translated, needs review)

v5.4.0-rc3 (4th of November 2026)

* llama.cpp advanced translate: add Generate with AI button for the synopsis - thx fraternl
* Hide the Actor column for formats that do not keep actors - thx accessallareas
* Pause video when stepping one frame back/forward - thx accessallareas
* Improve time codes: one prompt for missing models, no dead Download button - thx GitGianluc
* Blu-ray sup: split the palette by need between two objects
* Settings window opens faster
* Fix Auto-translate accepting replies shifted and padded with "..." - thx fraternl
* Fix Qwen3 ASR instant crash on Linux (engine v0.1.11) - thx JavierSanchezQ
* Fix Cut video ignoring SMPTE timing - thx OmrSi
* Fix long names cut off in Waveform toolbar items dialog - thx GitGianluc
* Fix stacked images in About window cross-fade - thx GitGianluc
* Update CrispASR to v0.8.50
* Update Finnish translation - thx KarvaMaha
* Update German translation - thx FunkyKnilch
* Update Hungarian translation
* Update Italian translation - thx GitGianluc

v5.4.0-rc2 (3rd of November 2026)

* Auto-translate: translate selected rows together, with context - thx mmmsh-125
* Auto-translate: find and replace in the translation column - thx mmmsh-125
* Auto-translate: skip more music/lyric line layouts - thx lordvorkosigan1968-cloud
* Blu-ray sup: add HDR (BT.2020 PQ) palette option - thx Victory61
* Bookmarks list: add import and export
* Source view: Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on macOS) applies changes - thx pdjdev
* Add Croatian UI translation (machine draft, needs review) - thx lordvorkosigan1968-cloud
* Update Avalonia to 12.1.5
* Fix Auto-translate shifting translations when the engine merges two rows - thx mmmsh-125
* Fix List errors time codes ignoring video offset and leading zero hours - thx accessallareas
* Fix toolbar drop-downs hidden under undocked tool windows - thx GrampaWildWilly
* Fix macOS Ctrl+click collapsing a multi-row selection
* Fix SMPTE timing not being applied until refresh - thx OmrSi
* Fix copy text shortcuts adding a trailing new line - thx OmrSi
* Update Chinese Traditional translation - thx love80312
* Update Italian translation - thx bovirus
* Update Japanese translation - thx hisui3393
* Update Korean translation - thx 12si27
* Update Polish translation - thx potplayer-fanpack

v5.4.0-rc1 (1st of November 2026)

* New SVG icons in all themes and the About window, sharp at any display scale
* New layout picker thumbnails drawn in theme colors, restyled spell check and change casing
* Auto-translate: show source and translation side by side, with more room for text
* Auto-translate: let CrispASR MADLAD use GPU builds - thx SMAP-git
* Fix common errors: more compact rules with clearer examples
* Improve Choose alignment, Go to line number and Command palette
* More consistent dialogs: Escape, button order, error icons
* Save as: list favorite subtitle formats first - thx accessallareas
* More dialog text can now be translated
* Fix "Save as" doubling the file extension on macOS (.srt.srt) - thx accessallareas
* Fix OCR line breaks of separated top and bottom text with Auto-break - thx robinfire110
* Fix error log entry from stopping mpv before it started - thx GrampaWildWilly
* Fix Auto-translate changing the subtitle when no text is returned - thx Blackspirits
* Fix Auto-translate losing language variants like pt-PT when switching provider - thx Blackspirits
* Update Japanese translation - thx hisui3393
* Update Polish translation - thx potplayer-fanpack
* Update Portuguese translation - thx Blackspirits
* Update Turkish translation - thx bilimiyorum

v5.4.0-beta12 (31st of October 2026)

* FFmpeg player: subtitle overlay closer to the mpv preview (per-line alignment, inline colors, bold/italic, RTL, second subtitle style, opaque box, justify)
* llama.cpp: pick CPU or Vulkan on Linux, switch builds from the engine settings - thx SMAP-git
* Bing translate: add Region field for regional Azure resources, show the real token error
* Classic theme: new video and waveform background art
* Improve performance of layout 14 timeline and FFmpeg player subtitle preview
* Improve help: recommended local models for translating from English
* Fix waveform click selecting the source line instead of its duplicate - thx Rafatenshii
* Fix "Generate background boxes" emptying the original subtitle - thx bichitoxxx
* Fix error log entries + Themes.zip unpacked on every start with the System theme - thx GrampaWildWilly
* Fix Multiple replace ticking excluded preview lines again
* Fix "push neighbour" shortcuts lengthening a neighbour already under minimum duration
* Fix OCR ASSA auto-alignment tagging top and bottom text as middle in tall images - thx robinfire110
* Fix AutoCompleteBox and Source view borders - thx pdjdev
* seconv: fix LFM vision models losing their OCR prompt
* seconv: fix --ollama-url with a bare host:port
* Update Japanese translation -...

Create/adjust/sync/translate subtitle lines
Convert between SubRib, MicroDVD, Advanced Sub Station Alpha, Sub Station Alpha, D-Cinema, SAMI, you-tube sbv, and many more (300+ different formats!)
Cool audio visualizer control - can display wave form and/or spectrogram
Video player uses mpv, DirectShow, or VLC media player
Visually sync/adjust a subtitle (start/end position and speed)
Audio to text (speech recognition) via Whisper or Vosk/Kaldi
Auto Translation via Google translate
Rip subtitles from a (decrypted) dvd
Import and OCR VobSub sub/idx binary subtitles
Import and OCR Blu-ray .sup files - bd sup reading is based on Java code from BDSup2Sub by 0xdeadbeef)
Can open subtitles embedded inside Matroska files
Can open subtitles (text, closed captions, VobSub) embedded inside mp4/mv4 files
Can open/OCR XSub subtitles embedded inside divx/avi files
Can open/OCR DVB and teletext subtitles embedded inside .ts/.m2ts (Transport Stream) files
Can open/OCR Blu-ray subtitles embedded inside .m2ts (Transport Stream) files
Can read and write both UTF-8 and other unicode files and ANSI (support for all languages/encodings on the pc!)
Sync: Show texts earlier/later + point synchronization + synchronization via other subtitle
Merge/split subtitles
Adjust display time
Fix common errors wizard
Spell checking via Libre Office dictionaries (many dictionaries available)
Remove text for hear impaired (HI)
Renumbering
Effects: Typewriter and karaoke
History/undo manager (Undo=Ctrl+z, Redo=Ctrl+y)
Compare subtitles
Multiple search and replace
Change casing using names dictionary
Merge short lines/split long lines
Export to PNG images (+bdn xml), Adobe Encore FAB image script, VobSub, Blu-ray sup, EBU stl, PAC, and plain text