Convert SRT to TXT

How to convert SRT to TXT

1. Open your .srt file

   Drop one SubRip file into the box above, or click to browse. It’s read by your browser and never uploaded.

2. Choose the layout

   Leave both switches off for the words alone, one subtitle per line. Turn on “Keep timestamps” to start each line with its time, or “Merge into paragraphs” for text that reads like prose.

3. Download the .txt file

   The preview shows the text exactly as it will be saved. The file keeps the original name with the new extension, so lecture.en.srt becomes lecture.en.txt.

What is removed, and what stays

A SubRip file is already text, but most of it is there for the player, not for a reader. Each subtitle is a block of three parts: a number, a line with the start and end time, and the words. A transcript only needs the last one.

Cue numbers and timing lines. The number above each block and the 00:01:02,345 --> 00:01:04,000 line are left out. With “Keep timestamps” on, the start time comes back in a shorter form, [00:01:02], in front of the words. The milliseconds and the end time are dropped, because nobody reads them.

Formatting tags. Italic, bold and underline tags, <font> colours and the {\an8} position codes that some files carry are removed. Only the tags go, never the words inside them. The summary above the Download button says how many were removed.

Line breaks inside a subtitle. A subtitle with two rows on screen becomes one line of text, with a space where the break was. The rows were split to fit the picture, not because the sentence ends there.

Subtitles with no words. A block that holds nothing but a tag or a position code has nothing to say in a transcript, so it is skipped and counted.

What stays. Every word, in the order of the file, including speaker dashes, sound descriptions such as [door closes] and song lines. The text is saved as UTF-8, which every editor and every website reads.

Plain lines, timestamps or paragraphs

Plain lines are the right choice when another tool takes over: a translation service, a spell checker, a script that counts words, or a search through every episode of a series. One subtitle per line keeps the text easy to compare with the original file.

Timestamps help whenever you need to find the moment again. Researchers quoting an interview, students taking notes on a lecture and editors looking for a line in the footage all want [00:12:40] next to the words. A timestamped transcript is also a quick way to write video chapters.

Paragraphs are for reading. A subtitle file cuts speech every two or three seconds; pasted into a document, it looks like a poem. Merging joins the lines that follow each other and starts a new paragraph when the speaker pauses for more than two seconds, which is usually where a thought ends or the scene changes. The result can go straight into a blog post, meeting notes or a summary.

Tips for a clean transcript

Check the letters first. If accented letters show up as é or question marks in the preview, the file was saved in an old encoding. Pick the right one next to the file name, or repair the file with Fix Subtitle Encoding, then convert it.

Keep the .srt file. A text file can’t become subtitles again, because the times are gone or reduced to a start time. Keep the original next to the transcript.

Need another subtitle format instead? A web player wants WebVTT, not text: use Convert SRT to VTT. If your captions are in a .vtt file, Convert VTT to TXT does the same job as this page.