How do I import a document?

Have you already written a manuscript? Or do you have to merge existing subtitles with your audio description? You can import these texts when creating a document.

Prepare a new document

The first steps are identical to creating a document:

1. Open your project.
2. Click on “New Document”.
3. Enter a “Title”.
4. Select the “Language” for the audio description.

Import existing texts

Before you click on “Create”, take a closer look at the “Optional: Upload document” area. The individual options at a glance:

Document Type

There are different text formats in which, for example, subtitles can be saved. Select the format you received.

Encoding

In general, texts today are encoded in UTF-8. But some programs may use different character sets. You can see that when you import, for example, German umlauts like ‘ä’ become characters like ‘╠ê’. In this case, try the import again with a different character set.

Timecode Offset

In most cases, scripts and video are synchronized and timecodes burned into the video correspond to the information in the script. But sometimes that is not the case. So it can be that “10:00:00.00” is burned in as a timecode in the video, but the script starts with “00:00:00.00”. The importer can try to adjust this automatically. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work. But luckily you can do this later in the editor using batch processing.

File

Select the text file to be imported here.

Preview

As soon as you have selected a file, the importer begins to copy the texts and generate speech output as a test. Progress is displayed as a growing list of small dots. Once the import is complete, the first three imported text blocks appear.

Click on “Create” now. You will then be taken directly to the editor.

Additional information about CSV import

While formats such as SRT, VTT or TTML are standardized, CSV requires a certain amount of preparatory work. So you have to use column names that Frazier understands. You can download an example. It contains the English description from our “Big Buck Bunny” demo. Here you can see how your CSV should best be structured.

You can copy the column names from the example into your own script. The easiest way to open CSV files is with Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice. Make sure that you select the correct extension when saving (.csv).

Details about the columns

Please note that the column names must always be written in English, even if your script is in another language!

Start

Timecode for the start of the text block (TCIN).

End

Timecode for the end of the text block (TCOUT).

Dialogue (optional)

Instruction or dialogue information. Displayed in italics in the editor and not read aloud.

Text

Your description. Will be read out in the editor.

Author (optional)

Your name. Only necessary if you are writing the script together with colleagues (for better tracking of who made which changes).

Voice (optional)

If you already know which voice the text should be read out with, you can enter the name here. Otherwise it’s best to delete the column in the CSV. Frazier then uses the default voice that you set when you created the document.

Speed (optional)

If you previously exported the CSV from Frazier, this column will show the speed used. If you create the CSV yourself, it’s best to leave out the column, then Frazier can generate the speech output at normal speed and you can adjust the speed later in the editor.

People (optional)

Tag the people. Will be automatically added to the glossary.

Locations (optional)

Tag the locations. Will be automatically added to the glossary.

Things (optional)

Tag the items. Will be automatically added to the glossary.

Are you stuck?

Imports can be, well… complicated… There is no reliable importer for DOCX files or unstructured text. For subtitles, we always recommend data exchange via SRT, VTT or TTML. These formats contain structured data including time codes and text blocks. If something goes wrong during the import, please contact support. We can also talk about other formats. Please send us an example and we’ll see what we can do.

Last Update: 2024/03/04