The purpose of this guide is intended to be both a reference and a starting point for those with interest in subtitling. This guide contains all you will need to know to get started in subtitling, including good practices and tips/tricks to make learning an easier process. This guide is intended primarily for beginners, although accomplished subtitlers or anyone in between who wishes to learn new techniques can use it. This is not a definitive guide nor is it universal in scope, but it will cover most of the aspects of subtitling you will need to know. This is merely a compilation of methods and means used by myself as I have learned from the ground up how to subtitle.

     In this text, I will show the basic methods I myself use to subtitle. Of course there are many things that are not covered here due to the complexity and variety involved. This is, after all, a beginner’s guide! This introduction is no substitute for reading software documentation or experimenting with your own methods. If what is addressed here works for you, then great! Otherwise, you may want to try other things. However, I will tell you what I have found to work the best, and hopefully it will save you time in the long run!

     Please understand that this guide is completely out of date by today's standards. If you are looking for information on how to subtitle digitally, rip DVDs, create DivX, .avi, .wmv, or .mkv files, this is not the guide for you. It can still offer you some insight, but the technical details of digisubbing are beyond the scope of this guide. At this point in time, it should be considered a historical document as it is going on 10 years old.