How to translate titles in Premiere Pro

Premiere Pro can translate a caption track, but not your titles. Lower thirds, title cards and text layers stay in the language you typed them in, so a version per language means duplicating the sequence and retyping every title in the copy. Translate titles does that from the saved .prproj. It reads every title and caption track, translates them into the languages you pick, and gives you the project back with one new sequence per language.

Machine translation. Check with a fluent speaker before publishing.

The manual way: a copy of the sequence for each language

This works in any version of Premiere and costs nothing but time.

1. In the Project panel, select the finished sequence and choose Edit > Duplicate. Premiere adds a copy with "Copy" at the end of its name. Rename it with the language, such as "Main Edit ES".
2. Open the copy. Pick the Type tool (T), click into a title in the Program Monitor and type the translation. You can also change the text in the Properties panel, or the Essential Graphics panel in older versions.
3. For a title made from a Motion Graphics template (.mogrt), select the clip and type the translation into the template's text fields in the same panel.
4. Do every title in the sequence, then start again for the next language.

Two things catch people out.

• Master graphics are shared. A title upgraded with Graphics and Titles > Upgrade to Master Graphic is one graphic used in several places. Change its text in the Spanish sequence and the English one changes too. Duplicate the master graphic in the Project panel and swap the copy in before you edit it.
• Translations run longer. The W3C's article on text size in translation cites IBM figures: an English string of up to 10 characters can grow to two or three times its length, and text over 70 characters by about 30 percent. A lower third that fit in English can spill out of its box, so check every title against the picture.

Captions

Premiere translates caption tracks itself. In the Text panel's Captions tab, the translate button sends the captions off to be translated and puts each language on its own caption track (Adobe's tutorial on adding and translating captions shows the steps). In each language's sequence, keep that language's track and delete the others.

That covers the captions. The titles still need retyping: a promo with 30 titles in five languages is 150 titles, and every change to the cut after that means making it again in five sequences.

The CutConvert way: one sequence per language from the .prproj

1. Save the project in Premiere Pro.
2. Drop the .prproj on Translate titles. CutConvert reads it on your computer and shows what it found, such as "23 text items in 2 sequences", with the sequence and timecode of each.
3. Pick the languages. Names, brands and anything else that should stay as it is go in Keep these words as they are. The first 10 items in one language preview free, on screen.
4. Check the review table. Every line can be edited, and the lines to look at are flagged: longer than the original, a font that may not have the new script's characters, or right-to-left text. Shorten asks for a shorter version of a line. Export CSV gives you the whole table to send to your own translator, and you can import it back.
5. Tick the box to confirm a fluent speaker will check the translations, then download the project and open it in Premiere.

Each language is a new sequence, named after the original with the language and its code at the end. The original sequence stays first and unchanged. Each translated sequence starts with a marker named "Machine-translated: review before delivery".

What comes across, and what doesn't

• Titles and text layers keep their font, size, colour, position, keyframes and the rest of their styling. Words styled differently inside a title, such as a bold name, keep that style when the translation allows it. When it can't be matched, the line takes the title's first style and the report says so.
• Caption tracks come back translated in each language's sequence, or as an SRT per language when they can't be written into the project. The download says which.
• MOGRT text isn't changed. The translation report lists it with each translation, so you can paste it into the template's fields.
• Fonts. A line is flagged when its font may not have the characters of the new script, such as Japanese in Montserrat. Turn on Swap fonts that lack these characters to use a Noto font for that script instead. The font then has to be installed on the computer that opens the project.

Only the on-screen text is sent to be translated. The .prproj and your media stay on your computer. A Premiere XML works too, with one sequence per language in one file, but a title in XML keeps only its first font, size and colour.

FAQ

Can Premiere Pro translate titles? Premiere's own translation works on caption tracks, in the Text panel's Captions tab. Titles, lower thirds and other graphics stay in the language they were typed in. You retype them in a copy of the sequence for each language, or use a tool that writes the translated sequences for you.

How do I make a separate sequence for each language? Select the sequence in the Project panel, choose Edit > Duplicate and rename the copy with the language. Then change the titles in the copy. Titles upgraded to a master graphic are shared between sequences, so changing one changes them all.

Does CutConvert change my original sequence? No. The original sequence stays first and as it was. Each language is a new sequence in the project you download, named after the original with the language at the end.

What happens to Motion Graphics templates? Text inside a MOGRT isn't changed. It's listed in the translation report with the translation for each language, so you can paste it into the template's text fields.

How much does it cost? The first 10 items in one language preview free, on screen. One project costs $5 for one language, $9 for up to 3 or $15 for up to 10. Pro includes 10 translated projects a month with up to 5 languages each, and Studio includes 40 with up to 80.