This is the table, not the merge warning
Bilingual subtitles to Word answers a specific failure: English
and the translation collapsed into one paragraph because Merge same speaker was on.
Turning merge off gives you one block per cue. It does not give you a column. Reviewers who read source
and translation side by side still have to make that layout. This page is only that layout, so the other
page can stay about the glue.
You will download twice when you have two files, episode.en.srt and
episode.es.srt. You will download once when both languages already share a cue, and then you
will split each block. Either way the converter’s job ends at paragraphs. Word’s job starts at
Insert → Table with two columns and a header row that names the languages.
Why the time range is the row key
Cue numbers look like a primary key and then fail. A translator splits a long line. That language now has
more cues than the other. Cue 40 is no longer the same moment. The range printed in the document —
hours only after 59:59, otherwise a short form — still points at the frames. Convert both files with
Show timestamps on. If you hide timestamps to make the table “look clean,” you throw away
the only key that survives an insert.
Match a row when the ranges overlap the same moment, not when the numbers are equal to the second. A
one-frame difference after a resync is still the same line. A thirty-second difference is a missing cue,
and the empty cell should stay empty so the gap is visible. Do not drag the next sentence up to fill it.
Build the table so it cannot reflow
- Convert the source with merge off and timestamps on. Download it.
- Convert the translation the same way. Download that as a second file.
- In Word, insert a table with two columns. Type the language names in row 1.
- Paste one block into each cell. Keep the range in the cell or in a narrow third column if the reviewer wants the clock once.
- Do not use newspaper columns, linked text boxes, or a two-column section break. Those reflow when a cell grows and the translation slides away from its source.
A single two-line cue is the same table with extra hand work: the block contains both languages, you
split on the line break, and you do not run merge first. If merge was on, go back. You cannot unpick a
glued paragraph reliably across a feature.
What you still edit elsewhere
The table is for wording. Line length, reading speed, and whether a forced narrative belongs in the file
are a QC pass — see Netflix subtitle QC for the sheet, and do not
expect this page to score them either. Clocks change in the caption file. A comment in a cell does not
move the cue. Right-to-left text needs paragraph direction set in Word after paste; the converter does
not set it.
When the shared copy should be a Google Doc, build the table in Word or in Docs after each language is a
.docx. Uploading the raw SRT into Drive leaves the arrows in the document.
SRT to Google Docs is that upload, not a second column tool.
Related workflows
Download the .docx
Run the source file first with Show timestamps on and Merge same speaker off. Download it. Repeat for the translation. Then build the table in Word. Do not use newspaper columns.
