Captions

Captions are text fields you can edit to include special indications and notes specific to a panel in your storyboard. These texts indications can be dialogue, action notes, sound effects, and more. You can customize the captions to include any information that's pertinent to your project.

This section includes the following topics:

Panel View
Expanding and Collapsing Captions
Adding Captions to the Storyboard
Adding Captions to the Panels
Adding a Sketch Caption to a Panel
Deleting Captions
Renaming Captions
Saving the Caption Layout as Default
Updating Captions from CSV

Panel View

To add information to a particular panel, you will use the Panel view. This view displays the different captions related to a panel, as well as other useful information.

The Panel view always shows the information and captions of the selected panel.

1. Panel Information
2. Selection Information
3. Voice Annotations
4. Panel Captions

Panel Information

This section of the Panel view is where you will find information such as the duration of the current panel, its name and the name of the scene it is part of. You can use the Scene and Panel fields to rename the current selection.

You can also use the Duration field to edit the panel’s duration—see Renaming Scenes, Renaming Panels and Animatic.

Selection Information

This collapsible section of the Panel view is where to find information such as the number of panels selected, the timing and frame number where the selection starts and ends, as well as the total duration of the selected panels. These fields are for reference only as they are not editable. You can click on the Collapse button to hide the section and leave more for the Script caption field. Once it is collapsed, you can click on Expand button to display the entire section again.

Voice Annotations

It is possible to add voice annotations to a panel. This collapsible section is used to control and edit these annotations—See Storyboard Supervision.

Panel Captions

There are several fields which are collectively known as panel captions, these are the default names:

Dialogue: Type or copy/paste dialogue character dialogue into this field.
Action Notes: Type or copy/paste notes related to the action occurring in the scene into this field.
Slugging: Add notes referring to the timing of the storyboard. Slugging is the timing of the individual recorded lines of dialogue against the board.
Notes: Add general notes about the panel here.

The caption fields are named by default, you can easily change the name of these fields.

To rename a caption:

  1. Click the Caption Menu button and select Rename Caption.
  1. Once you have changed the names of the captions and you are certain that you want to keep these names throughout the project you can set the new names as default by clicking on Caption menu in the main menu bar and selecting Save Captions Layout as Default.

You can also choose to hide any of the caption categories from being displayed in the Panel view.

To hide a caption from the Panel view:

  1. From the top menu, select Caption > Show/Hide Captions.

The Show/Hide Captions dialog box opens.

  1. Deselect any captions that you want to hide. If you have added your own custom captions, they should appear in the list. Any captions that you renamed appears as you renamed them.

You can use the Caption Menu button to access the commands related to your caption fields, and the Text Formatting button to display a toolbar to format your text—see See Adding Text to Panel Captions.

NOTE: When working in the Drawing workspace, you can quickly switch the focus from the Panel view to the Stage view by pressing Esc].

Adding Text to Panel Captions

There are several ways to add text to a Caption field, and editing it is very easy.

This section includes the following topics:

Drag and Drop Text
Typing Text
Formatting Text
Find Text in Captions

Drag and Drop Text

The quickest and easiest way to add text to your caption fields is to drag and drop it. For example, if you imported your script into the Storyboard view’s Script caption field, you can select the text you need and drop it in the desired panel’s caption field.

To drag and drop text from your imported script:

  1. (Optional) Switch to the Vertical workspace by clicking the Vertical Workspace button or selecting Windows > Workspace > Workspace > Vertical.
  1. In the Thumbnails view, select the panel to which you want to add text to a caption.
  1. In the Storyboard view:
In the Vertical workspace, the Storyboard view is on the right side of the screen, under the Panel view. Click the Storyboard tab to switch to this view.
If the Storyboard view is not displayed in your workspace, select Windows > Storyboard.
  1. In the Script caption field, highlight the part of the text you want to drag and drop.
NOTE: You can drag and drop text from any caption field to another; it does not absolutely have to be from the Script caption.
  1. In the Script caption, click and drag the selected text and drop it in the destination caption of your panel.

  1. Repeat this until you have copied all the necessary text into your project’s caption fields.

Typing Text

If you did not import a script, or if you want to add more text, you can simply type in the needed indications and information into the caption field of your choice.

To type text in a caption field:

  1. In the Thumbnails view, select a panel.
  1. In the Panel view, click in a caption field to activate text edit, then type the information, dialogue, or notes you need.

In the default workspace, the Panel view is displayed on the right of the Stage view.

If the Panel view is not in your current workspace, select Windows > Panel.
NOTE: You can also copy and paste text from external applications such as Microsoft sWord or from a PDF files.

Formatting Text

Once you have imported, dragged and dropped, or typed some text into your storyboard captions, you can use the Text Formatting toolbar to enhance it.

To apply Rich Text formatting to caption text:

  1. In the Panel or Storyboard view, click the Text Formatting button of a caption.
  1. In a caption, select the text you want to format.
  1. Use the Text Formatting toolbar buttons and options to edit the text.
Font Type: Choose the font type of your choice from this menu.
Font Size: Change the size of the text using menu.
Bold: Click the Bold button to change the text to bold.
Italic: Click the Italic button to change your text to italic.
Underline: Click the Underline button to underline your text.
Align Left: Click the Align Left button to align your text to the left.
Centre: Click the Centre button to centre your text.
Align Right: Click the Align Right button to align your text to the right.
Justify: Click the Justify button to justify your text.
Colour: Click the Colour button to open the Select Colour dialog box and choose a new colour for your text.

Find Text in Captions

You can search captions to find a specific part of your text. This can become very handy when you have a large number of captions and text in your project.

To find text in captions:

  1. In the Panel or Storyboard view, select any caption field.
  1. Click the Caption Menu button and select Find Text in Captions. You can also select Caption > Find Text in Captions from the top menu or press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[F] (Windows) or [⌘]+[Shift]+[F] (Mac OS X).

The Find Text in Captions dialog box opens.

  1. Edit the search options:
In the Find field, type in the word you are looking for.
Select the Case sensitive option to have the search consider the case of the word.
Select Forward or Backward for the search direction.
  1. Click Find.

The caption containing the first word fitting your search options is displayed in either the Storyboard or Panel view, and the word is highlighted in yellow. The Find Text in Captions dialog box displays information about the caption in which the word was found.

  1. Click Find to display the next results.

Expanding and Collapsing Captions

When you have more than one caption field in a panel, you can use the Expand and Collapse button to expand and collapse them.

To expand and collapse captions:

  1. Display the Panel or Storyboard view. Note that there must be more than one caption field in a panel in order to be able to collapse or expand one.
  1. Click the Expand and Collapse button of the desired caption.

  1. On the first click, the selected caption expands and the other ones collapse.

  1. On the second click, the selected caption collapses and the other ones expand.

  1. On the third click, all the captions return to their original state.

Adding Captions to the Storyboard

In the Storyboard view, by default, there is only one caption field which is called Script. If you need to, you can add more captions to this view.

To add captions in the Storyboard view:

  1. In the Storyboard view, click the Script Caption Menu button and select Add Caption or select Caption > Add Caption to Storyboard.

The Choose Field Name dialog box opens.

  1. Type a name for your new Caption field.

The new caption appears below the Script caption. This one is named Director Notes, for example.

Adding Captions to the Panels

In each panel, there are two caption fields: Dialogue and Action Notes. If you need to enter more information, you can always add a new caption for your panels.

To add captions to a panel:

  1. In the Thumbnails view, select a panel.
  1. In the Panel view, click one of the Caption Menu buttons and select Add Caption or select
    Caption > Add Caption to Panels.

The Choose Field Name dialog box opens.

  1. Type a name for your new Caption field. In the following example below, "SFX" was typed.

The new caption appears below the existing ones, and is available for every panel of your storyboard.

Adding a Sketch Caption to a Panel

Just like in a traditional storyboard, you can add drawn indications to a panel’s caption. For this, you need to add a Sketch caption to your panel.

NOTE: You cannot add a sketch caption to the Storyboard view.

To add a sketch to a panel:

  1. In the Thumbnails view, select the panel to which you want to add a sketch.
  1. In the Panel view, click one of the Caption Menu buttons and select Add Sketch or select
    Caption > Add Sketch to Current Panel.

The Choose Field Name dialog box opens.

  1. Type a name for your Sketch field.

The Sketch field appears below the existing captions for this panel only.

  1. Once you added a Sketch caption field, you can use any drawing tool to sketch in it—see Drawing and Adding Colour.

Deleting Captions

If you have a caption that is no longer needed, you can delete it. But be careful, if you remove a caption that has been filled with text or a sketch, they will both be removed permanently.

To delete captions:

  1. Display the Panel or Storyboard view, depending on whether it is a panel caption or storyboard caption you want to delete.
  1. In the Panel or Storyboard view, click the Caption Menu button for the caption you want to delete and select Delete Caption. You can also select Caption > Delete Caption > select a caption to delete from the list.

A warning message opens.

If you are sure you want to delete the caption, click Yes.
If you want to cancel the process, click No.

Renaming Captions

You can easily rename a caption.

To rename a caption:

  1. Display the Panel view or Storyboard view, depending on whether it is a panel caption or a storyboard caption you want to rename.
  1. In the Panel or Storyboard view, click the Caption Menu buttons for the caption you want to rename and select Rename Caption.
You can also use the top menu to rename captions. Select Caption > Rename Caption > select the caption you want to rename from the list.

The Renaming a Field dialog box opens.

  1. Type a new name for your caption field.

The selected caption field is renamed.

Saving the Caption Layout as Default

When you are satisfied with your current caption combination and layout, you can save it as the default caption layout for any future Storyboard Pro projects. The next project you create will automatically have this layout by default.

To save the caption layout as default:

Select Caption > Save Captions Layout as Default.

Updating Captions from CSV

In Storyboard Pro, you can efficiently update the captions in your project. If you generate a *.csv sheet (comma separated values) from your project, you can update the file, then import it into Storyboard Pro. Doing so will update all caption fields automatically. You must first generate the CSV from your current project.

To generate a CSV from your current project:

  1. Make sure your caption fields are up to date, and save your project.
  1. Select File > Export > CSV.

The Export to CSV dialog opens.

Once you have generated the CSV, you can update it in your spreadsheet if there are major changes, such as the dialogue. Working this way allows you to import the updated CSV into Storyboard Pro and have all caption fields updated.

To use the Update Captions from CSV option:

  1. When you open the *.csv file in your spreadsheet application, select the field separator you used (i.e.: a comma).

The heading of each column contains the name of the caption field. Use this to determine where to add your caption updates.

  1. Find the captions you need to modify within the *.csv file. When you are finished, save and close your file.
  1. Open the Storyboard Pro project you want to update.
  1. From the top menu, select File > Update Captions from CSV.

The Import CSV dialog box opens.

  1. Browse to the folder that contains your *.csv file, select it, and click Import.
  1. In the Report section, notice which caption fields have been updated.

Any captions you modify in the *.csv file are also updated in the caption fields of your Storyboard Pro project.

CSV files exported from Storyboard Pro are UTF-8. CSV files can be modified in Excel if all the characters are part of the latin character set. If non latin characters are used, the CSV files can be edited using Open Office.

CSV files exported from Storyboard Pro can be edited in either Microsoft Excel or Open Office.

IMPORTANT: Excel does not display non-English characters properly and will not recognize them when importing to Storyboard Pro.