Captions in Premiere Pro 13.1.2 have several problems.

(Windows10. May be different on Mac.). Here is a thread of all of the problems I've found in captions so far. While there are several threads already that point out individual issues, I'm hoping that bringing all of the issues together in a single mega thread will help get captions Adobe's prompt attention. Here we go!

1. NO BURN IN: Exporting a video through Media Encoder doesn't burn in captions even if the "Burn Captions Into Video" option is selected in Premiere Pro's Export Settings. The captions only get burned in if the video is exported directly through Premiere Pro.




2. DUPLICATES: If a captions file is duplicated in the project window, any changes done to the duplicate don't appear in the Program Monitor. In order to have changes appear, Premiere Pro needs to be restarted.




3. SELECT ALL: The Captions window is missing the standard CTRL-A keyboard shortcut to easily select all captions at once. This strange omission makes it unnecessarily difficult to select all the captions in a clip to make global appearance changes.




4. LEADING CONTROL: Captions need an easy way to control the space between lines, such as a Leading control that can work on individual captions, or all of the selected captions at once. (See illustration “Captions 1”) The current "Set Vertical Position (%)" option only works on a single caption at a time and requires the user to manually select the text in the second line. This takes far more time and effort than it should for something so simple.




5. DEFAULT LEADING: The default leading in captions is far too large and therefore ugly. The default leading between caption lines should be reduced to an aesthetically pleasing amount (See “Captions 2”)




6. KERNING CONTROL: The Captions window is also missing a way to control the spacing between characters in a caption. A Legacy Titler-style Kerning control is needed for Open captions.




7. MOTION SETTINGS: Copy/pasting the Motion settings of one captions clip to another in the Timeline does not work.




8. OFF-CENTER: By default, captions are off-center to the right by 5 pixels. When using captions in a narrow format video (1x1, 4x5, etc.) in which captions can stretch out to the edges of the frame, this error can become apparent. This incorrect centering can also become apparent in any sized video when captions line up with another title or graphic that’s centered on screen. (see “Captions 3”)




9. SPACING: If a two line caption is turned back into a single line, the space between the last character of the first line and the first character of the second line becomes incorrectly large. Even if characters are added or removed from the caption, the larger gap remains (see “Captions 4”)




10. MULTI-MOVING: It’s possible to select and even Shift-select multiple captions in a captions clip. So why isn’t it possible to do anything whatsoever with this selection? At the very least, Premiere Pro should let editors move a selection of captions up or down the captions clip for retiming purposes. Imagine having a video with 100 captions, only to have the client request that something be added or removed halfway into the video. This currently requires the editor to manually correct the timing of all captions beyond the change one by one… by one… by one… by one… This is sheer insanity and needs to be fixed ASAP!




11. BIGGER HANDLES: Captions and handles remain the same tiny size in the Timeline, no matter how much the video track is expanded. This makes it all too easy for users to accidentally move the captions clip itself when trying to retime a caption/handle. Captions and handles should grow accordingly when increasing the size of the video track they’re on. (see “Captions 5”)

Do you know of any captioning issues I missed? If so, please add them to the list!

Please vote and comment to help get Adobe’s attention on this matter!

In this day and age of Facebook/Instagram videos, open captioning has become a must. We need captioning tools that work properly asap!

https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/38080990-everything-wrong-with-captions-in-premiere-pro-13

The above link is a post detailing issues with captioning. Here are some more that I would like to add to the list:

1.

The most egregious failing of the system is the text-editing inabilities of the Captions panel. The text box does not respect standard system keyboard shortcuts for caret navigation. All of the following standard text-editing shortcuts, that see heavy usage with document editing, do not work as expected:

• Home/End: Instead of moving the caret to the start/end of the line, it selects the first/last caption in the list.




• Up/Down: Instead of moving up/down a line, it selects the previous/next caption in the list.




• Ctrl+Home/End: Instead of moving to the beginning/end of the text, it selects all the captions before/after.

Shift+Home/End: Instead of selecting text to the start/end of the line, it selects all the captions before/after.

Ctrl+Backspace/Delete: Instead of deleting the previous/next word, it deletes the current caption.

There are probably more. Please use a standard text box implementation for the captions so all standard shortcuts work within them.

2.

You cannot use standard editing shortcuts to retime the captions (ripple edits, extending in/out points, adding/subtracting time, etc.) Since all the captions live within a single container clip, you are required to click and drag on the small handles on either end to adjust timing.

3.

The timing of the captions on export is determined by the in point of the container clip, and not by the in point of the first caption. This is an obtuse and un-intuitive mechanic and it required me to Google how to globally fix the timing, after I realised everything was out of sync (which only shows up on export, mind you, and not in the timeline itself while you're captioning).

4.

The captions do not wrap automatically. For long captions, you are required to manually create line breaks, or else they go off the screen.

5.

You cannot directly select any caption in the Timeline. Even with the mouse cursor placed directly over a caption, it will first only select the container clip. You need a second click to select the actual caption.

6.

There is no way to define a global style. Any global change requires you to select all the captions. If you want any captions to not be affected by that global change, you have to manually de-select those.

7.

In the Captions panel, clicking a caption will not actually navigate to that caption in the timeline, so you cannot immediately see a preview of your edit. You have to take the extra step of navigating the playhead to that clip manually.

8.

For whatever reason, you cannot select more than 2 captions in the timeline simultaneously. Even then, you cannot move them both at the same time.

9.

You cannot undo any value change in the Captions panel (e.g. font size, colour, etc.) unless you first deselect the caption. If you don't deselect the caption, hitting Undo will unexpectedly undo the last text change you made.

Make closed captions accessible.

The kerning on the closed captions are not accessible when the whole point of closed captions are to make the video accessible to all viewers. It's too difficult to read especially for people with Dyslexia. New UK accessibility laws are changing and we need the functionality to meet these new regulations. Please, please consider making the kerning better so it doesn't look like individual characters from an accessible point of view. If you aren't going to improve the CC then please consider adjusting your guides to be less misleading, they state you can change the fonts and colours etc when you can only do that on open captions. You even have an image with the description "displaying closed captions" using a screen shot of open captions. Very misleading.

Caption settings have been buggy for a while, but in Premiere Pro 2018 (v13.x) they don't even take unless you save your project, quit Premiere, and then start it again.

Setup:
- macOS 10.14.1
- Open Premiere Pro CC
- Import a video (I'm working with MP4's)
- Import a caption file (I'm working with DFXP)
- Move both to the Timeline and match them up (audio to captions) as needed.
- In the Timeline, click on the captions
- Open the Captions panel
- Right click on the first caption and then Select All
- Enter your settings... my example: Align Center. Set Background opacity to 100%. Open position caption block = Bottom Center. (PremCCcaps_01.png)

If you look at the preview the captions are still in their default state (PremCCcaps_03.png).

If you do Export Media*, the settings still haven't taken (PremCCcaps_03.png).

If you save your project, quit Premiere Pro, then launch it again and open your project, the caption settings have taken (PremCCcaps_04.png).

*Note in Premier Pro2017, Export Media would show the captions with the proper settings but you'd still have to quit/relaunch Premiere for them to show up properly.