How to turn silent-film intertitles into subtitles
Read the text cards of a silent movie automatically, turn each card into a timed subtitle line and translate it into any language.
Updated 2026-10-07 · Code Boop
Silent films tell their story through intertitles — the text cards between scenes. For viewers who don't read the original language, or who watch on a small screen, those cards need subtitles. Typing them out card by card is slow; reading them automatically takes minutes.
How it works
AI Caption & Translate Pro scans the film for stretches where the picture stands still — text cards stay on screen while scenes move. It reads each card with the Mac's built-in text recognition (Apple Vision, entirely on your Mac) and makes one subtitle line per card, shown for exactly as long as the card is on screen.
Step by step
- Open the silent movie.
- Choose Tools → Subtitles from Text Cards (⇧⌘I).
- Pick the language on the cards, or let it be detected — the app identifies the language of the text it read before translating.
- Tick the languages to translate into. Each gets its own subtitle file.
- Check the lines: ornate title cards can be misread, and a long still shot with a letter or sign in it may become a line too.
Good to know
- A feature film takes a few minutes.
- The cards are read on your Mac; only the translations use the online translation service.
- Pair it with AI upscaling to give the whole film a second life.