Templates
Urdu subtitle & caption generator
Urdu captions are written right to left in اردو script, with a start and end on every word. By default they are drawn in Noto Nastaliq Urdu, a tall, sloping style of the script that needs more line spacing than Latin captions do.
No Urdu templates have been published yet. Any template in the full gallery can still caption Urdu: letters its own font cannot draw come from the Urdu fallback face.
Captioning in Urdu
Urdu runs right to left in a joined script, and both facts reach into a caption: the order its words appear in, how its letters can be animated, and how much height each row needs. Urdu is transcribed in its own script only; the romanised and English-translation options are not available for it.
Right to left, one caption at a time
When any word in a caption is written in Urdu script, the whole caption is laid out from right to left, and the exported video places the words in the order the preview shows. An English brand name inside an Urdu sentence keeps its place in that order instead of turning the line around.
Because the words are placed right to left, each newly spoken word appears to the left of the one before it, which is the direction an Urdu reader's eye already travels.
Letters that join
Urdu letters change shape according to the letters beside them, so a word cannot be split into separate letters without every piece falling back to its unjoined form. Entrances that bring text in letter by letter, such as a typewriter reveal or a letter-by-letter blur, therefore bring each Urdu word in whole.
Added letter spacing can open gaps in the strokes that link Urdu letters, so leave Letter spacing at zero on Urdu captions, and pick a template that adds none if its own spacing shows through. The automatic emphasis mark knows no Urdu function words and favours long words, so check which word it marks; select a word and press E to move it.
Nastaliq or Naskh
When a template's own font has no Arabic letters, Urdu is drawn in Noto Nastaliq Urdu, the calligraphic style most Urdu readers grew up with. Nastaliq sets each word on a slope that drops from right to left and stacks letters vertically, so it takes far more height than the other scripts here: by its own metrics a line of Noto Nastaliq Urdu needs 2.5 em, against 1.7 em for Noto Naskh Arabic and about 1.2 em for a Latin face such as Inter. If rows collide on a multi-row template, raise Line spacing.
The editor offers ten faces for the script under Native script font, and every one of them includes the letters Urdu adds to Arabic, such as ٹ, ڈ, ڑ, ں and ے:
- Noto Nastaliq Urdu and Gulzar: Nastaliq, the look Urdu readers expect.
- Noto Naskh Arabic, Amiri, Scheherazade New and Lateef: Naskh, more upright and more compact, useful when long subtitles need to fit.
- Noto Kufi Arabic, Reem Kufi, Rakkas and Aref Ruqaa: display styles for short, bold lines, and less usual for Urdu.
Questions
Can Urdu captions be romanised or translated into English?
Not in AutoCap. Romanisation and translation run through a service that does not accept Urdu, so the editor offers native script only, and captions come out in Urdu script, right to left.
Why do my Urdu caption rows overlap?
Nastaliq rises and drops much further than most scripts. Raise Line spacing, or choose a Naskh face such as Noto Naskh Arabic under Native script font, which needs far less height.
Why doesn't the typewriter effect type Urdu letter by letter?
A joined word cut into letters would lose the shapes that make it readable, so an entrance that types or blurs text in letter by letter shows each Urdu word arriving complete.