How can I merge multiple documents?

Have you described several chapters of a film separately? Or did you receive subtitles that should be read out along with the audio description? You can merge such documents if necessary.

This is how you combine documents

1. Open the context menu of the first document.
2. Select the “Merge documents…” option.
3. Assign a “Title” for the new, assembled document.
4. Check the settings for “Default Voice”, “Language”, “Notes”, etc.
5. Now select the “Documents” that you want to merge. To select and deselect individual documents, hold down the “Ctrl” key while pressing the left mouse button or the “Space”.
6. Click on “Create.”
7. A new document will now be created in which all cue points from the selected documents have been merged.

Scenarios

Two short examples where combining documents has proven successful.

1. Combine subtitles and audio description

A common scenario is inserting subtitles into an existing audio description. In many cases, the subtitles should then be read out with one – or several – other voices.

The following process has proven successful here:

1. Create a document for the subtitles and import a subtitle file if necessary.
2. Edit the subtitles, set the desired voices.
3. Merge the existing audio description and the new subtitles into a new document as described above.
4. Now use the combined document to check the position of subtitles and audio description and adjust if necessary.
5. Optional: Delete the old documents.

2. Combine several episodes of a series

Sometimes it happens that several episodes of a series are edited into a single film and, if necessary, shortened. To reuse the audio descriptions you have already created, you can do the following:

1. Create a new project for the long version.
2. Export the manuscript from each episode as an *.adc file.
3. Import all episodes into the new project as separate documents.
4. Optional: If the individual episodes start with the same timecode, you should move the texts from episode 2 onwards before merging. This will prevent them from overlapping after putting them together! For example, if you have 3 episodes of 30 minutes each, episode 1 can remain unchanged. In episode 2 you move all texts by 30 minutes and in episode 3 by 60 minutes.
5. Now you can combine the documents as described above.
6. Optional: Delete the imported episodes. From now on you will work in the merged document.
7. Finally make corrections on the merged document. If the new video has different scenes cuts, the texts will most likely no longer fit exactly and you will have to correct them manually. Use batch processing if you want to move several cue points at the same time.

Last Update: 2023/10/09