How to Make an SRT File (4 Working Methods)
There are exactly four roads to a finished SRT file, and picking the right one for your situation saves an hour of fiddling. All four end the same way: a plain-text file of numbered cues that any player accepts.
Quick answer: Fastest routes: build cues one by one in a generator (short videos), convert an existing subtitle file (one drop), auto-time a text transcript at a reading speed (draft captions), or export SRT directly from your editor. A plain renamed .txt is not an SRT.
Method 1 — build it cue by cue
For title cards, lyric videos and anything under a few dozen cues, building directly is fastest: play the video, note when each line should appear and disappear, type the times into a generator with live validation. You finish with a file that is already correct — nothing to repair later.
Method 2 — convert what you already have
If the captions exist in any other shape — VTT from a web player, ASS from Aegisub, SBV from an old YouTube export, TTML from Premiere — conversion is instant and lossless where the target format allows. Check the result in a cue viewer and you're done.
Method 3 — auto-time a transcript
If you have the words but no timing, a converter can produce a readable draft by splitting the text into sentences and pacing them at a chosen reading speed (17 chars/sec is a comfortable default). Treat the result as a draft: real sync needs either real timestamps or a pass against playback.
Method 4 — export from your editor
Premiere, Resolve and most caption-capable editors export SRT directly. The catch is round-tripping: if your source was auto-transcribed, budget time for correction inside the editor before export, because the export is only as good as the track it comes from.
What doesn't work
- Renaming script.txt to script.srt — players check content, not extension
- Writing timestamps with dots instead of commas (that's VTT syntax)
- Letting cues overlap — some players stack, some flash, all misbehave