SubtitleLab

Convert SRT to CSV for Excel and Sheets

Translate, review or analyse subtitles in a spreadsheet. Each cue becomes one row with its index, start, end and text.

Drop subtitle files here, or click to chooseYou can also paste text below. Multiple files are converted together.

🔒 Runs in your browser. Your files and text are not uploaded.

How to use the SRT to CSV Converter

  1. Drop a subtitle file or paste its content.
  2. Pick the delimiter your spreadsheet expects — comma for most English systems, semicolon for many European Excel settings, or tab for pasting directly.
  3. Choose a time format: timecode with dot or comma, seconds, or milliseconds. Seconds and milliseconds make it easy to calculate durations with formulas.
  4. Keep UTF-8 BOM ticked so Excel shows accents and Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Cyrillic text correctly. Download and open the CSV.

What the CSV looks like

index,start,end,text
1,00:00:01.000,00:00:03.500,"Hello, world"
2,00:00:04.000,00:00:06.250,"Second line
with a line break"

Fields containing the delimiter, quotes or line breaks are quoted according to the standard CSV rules (RFC 4180), so the file imports cleanly into Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice and databases.

Translating subtitles in a spreadsheet

Add a column next to the original text, translate line by line (manually or with a translation function in your spreadsheet), save as CSV (UTF-8) and convert it back with the CSV to SRT tool. Because the timing columns stay untouched, the translated file lines up with the video exactly. Keep one line per row and do not reorder rows unless the start column moves with them.

Excel and the BOM

Excel treats CSV files without a byte-order mark as being in the local legacy encoding, which breaks accents and non-Latin scripts. Adding the UTF-8 BOM tells Excel to read the file as Unicode. Google Sheets and LibreOffice do not need it but ignore it harmlessly. If your system uses semicolons as the list separator, select the semicolon delimiter so that columns split when you double-click the file.

Analysis ideas

  • Compute duration = end − start and characters per second with a formula to find lines that are too fast.
  • Sort by text length to spot very long cues.
  • Filter rows containing a word to find every scene that mentions it.

The reading speed analyser does the calculations automatically if you only need a report.

Frequently asked questions

Why do accents look wrong in Excel?

Excel needs a UTF-8 BOM to recognise Unicode CSV files. Make sure the BOM option is ticked, then open the file via Data → From Text/CSV if double-clicking still fails.

Which delimiter should I use?

Comma works almost everywhere. If your Excel splits columns on semicolons (common in Germany, France and Brazil), choose semicolon. Tab is best when you copy and paste.

How are line breaks inside a subtitle stored?

Inside the cell by default, as a real line break within quotes. Choose “Replace with a space” for a single-line cell.

Can I get the times as numbers?

Yes. Choose seconds or milliseconds in the time format dropdown.

Can I import the CSV back to SRT?

Yes, use the CSV to SRT converter. It reads the same column layout, and also accepts files with different column names.

Does the file leave my computer?

No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser.

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