Check subtitle reading speed cue by cue
Drop a subtitle file and see every cue that's too fast to read, too long, too short, has too many lines, or overlaps the one before. Pick a preset or set your own limits.
CPS counts every character a viewer reads, spaces and punctuation included, but not line breaks or tags.
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Subtitle reading speed is measured in characters per second (CPS): the number of characters in a cue, spaces and punctuation included, divided by how long it's on screen. Commonly used guidelines put the limit at about 20 CPS for adults and 17 for children, with up to 42 characters a line and 2 lines a cue; Netflix's English timed text style guide, for example, uses 20 CPS for adult programs and 17 for children's. This free checker measures every cue in an SRT or VTT file against those limits in your browser.
3 steps, a few seconds
Add your subtitles
Drop an .srt or .vtt file, or paste its text.
Pick the limits
Use the adult or children's preset, or set your own CPS, line, duration and gap limits.
Fix the flagged cues
Read the summary and the table of cues that break a limit, with the reason and the time, or download it as a CSV.
What the Subtitle Reading Speed Checker does
Reading speed (CPS)
Characters per second for every cue, with the average and the fastest cue in the file.
Line length and count
Flags lines over your character limit and cues with too many lines.
Duration
Flags cues on screen too briefly to read and cues that stay up too long.
Gaps and overlaps
Flags cues that overlap the one before, and gaps too small for the eye to notice the change.
Presets or custom
Adult (20 CPS) and children's (17 CPS) presets with 42 characters and 2 lines, or your own numbers.
Private and free
The file is checked in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
- Input
- .srt or .vtt file, or pasted text (UTF-8), up to 5 MB
- Checks
- CPS · characters per line · lines per cue · minimum and maximum duration · overlaps · small gaps · cues that end before they start
- Adult preset
- 20 CPS · 42 characters per line · 2 lines · 0.833 to 7 seconds · 83 ms minimum gap
- Children's preset
- 17 CPS, with the other limits the same as the adult preset
- Character count
- Spaces and punctuation count; line breaks, HTML-style tags and {\an8}-style codes don't
- Report
- Summary, a table of flagged cues with the reason and time, and a CSV download
Need more than a free tool?
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Questions about the Subtitle Reading Speed Checker
What is a good reading speed for subtitles?
How is characters per second calculated?
How many characters per line and lines per subtitle?
How long should a subtitle stay on screen?
Does the checker fix the problems?
Is my file uploaded?
Link to this tool
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