Regular expressions
Originator now supports regular expressions. These are codes to be used inside the tool to locate formatting issues as well as TTSG violations.
We highly recommend that you include this search during each task review before submission.
To search for regular expressions, press CTRL/CMD⌘ + F, select “Subtitle view” from the dropdown menu, then tick the “Regular Expression” box:
Formatting regular expressions:
\s\n|\s$|\s\s
To search for trailing spaces at the end of each line and double spaces.
\s\n
To search for trailing spaces at the end of the first line.
\s*$
To search for trailing spaces at the end of the second line.
^|\s)\d(\s|$|,|…|\.)|^\d(
To search for single-digit numbers that should be spelled out and numbers at the beginning of the subtitle.
[0-9]
To search for subtitles with numbers.
\s,|\s\.|\s\?|\s\!|\s…
To search for redundant spaces before punctuation marks.
(?<!\S)(\S+)\s+\2(?!\S)
To search for repeated words in a row.
[A-ZÀ-Ö.,;!?"…]{3,}$|[A-ZÀ-Ö]{2,}$
To search for subtitles in ALL CAPS.
TTSG-specific regular expressions:
\n-\s|^-\S
To search for a hyphen followed by a space on the second line.
\n-\s|^-\S
To search for hyphens followed by a space at the beginning of each line.
(?<=^|\n)-\S
To search for hyphens that are not followed by a space at the beginning of either line.
^-\s|^ -
To search for hyphens with space before and after.
^ -|^-[^\s]
To search for hyphens with space before and no space after.
(?=.*\n)^[^-][\S\s]{0,41}$
To search for subtitles that can fit in one line
To change the limit, input your task’s character per line limit minus one (i.e. 42 - 1 = 41).
For example, for the 39 characters limit: (?=.*\n)^[^-][\S\s]{0,38}$
General searches:
On top of the expressions above, you should also use the Originator search function to always check your tasks for the following formatting issues:
Ellipses written as three dots (...). You should use the smart character (…)
Windows hotkey: U+2026
Mac hotkey: ⌥ (option key) + ,
Double spaces: simply type two spaces
Do you know more Regular Expressions that you think we should add to the list? Email us at [email protected]