HELP! Add Bulk Titles To Final Cut Pro X?

Try this:

http://fcpxtemplates.com/ngtopics/sc_captionClip.zip

Install as an Effect. You can apply it to clips, compound clips, generators or titles. In your case, use a title and remove the default text, then apply Caption Clip.

Stretch the title out for as long as you need.

Copy your text in a text editor. Each piece of text needs to be a separate line. If you need a pause between lines, double or triple space the text.

Paste the text in the Text field in the Parameters list of Caption Clip.

Play.

You can delay the start with Start Time (it is % of length of clip) and trim the ending with End Time (also at % of length of clip).

If you alter the font and/or font size, you will likely need to adjust the Line offset. Set up the first line, use some object to mark the position of the text. Go to the last line (by positioning the playhead) and adjust Line Offset so that the last line sits on the same mark as the first line.

There's a Rotation parameter if you like.

Even though Start Time and End time can be keyframed: don't!

You can add more than one of these to a single clip and use the Start Time / End Time of each to set up the timing for each.

PS - if you look right under the Text entry parameter, you'll see 3 dots. You can grab those and resize the text entry "window" in the Effect.

Text is displayed in even amounts of time for each line. There are no adjustments other than breaking up the texts to separate effects and using Start/End Time for each. The video you showed appears to be set up that way anyway.

If you use this as one effect for your entire video, make a compound clip of the entire timeline and add Caption Clip to that. It should run in a similar manner.

Hope this helps.

Do you have the text in a file, with one title per line?

This calls for a little work with xml.

There is a relatively simple way to do this, if you are not afraid of a little programming.

Here is what I'd do:

1) Create a simple project, with just a title, and set it up exactly how I want it to look.

2) Export this one title project as XML: File->Export XML...

3) Open the XML file in a text editor like BBEdit (could also be TextEdit, as long it is kept as plain text)

4) Isolate the portion of the XML corresponding to the title. It will look like this:

<title name="Basic Title" offset="0s" ref="r2" duration="25100/2500s" start="3600s">

<text>

<text-style ref="ts1">Title</text-style>

</text>

<text-style-def id="ts1">

<text-style font="Helvetica" fontSize="63" fontFace="Regular" fontColor="1 1 1 1" alignment="center"/>

</text-style-def>

</title>

5) Write a little script (about a dozen lines in Python) to write the first part of the XML, then write one XML tag as above for each line of the text, and finally write the rest of the XML.

It will help if one adjusts the offset of the titles so we don't end up with a hundred titles stacked up.

6) Import this created new XML back into FCP X, and adjust.

Whether this is worth the effort, compared to just copying and pasting in the timeline, depends on two things:

a) How many titles there are (and how often you may end up doing a similar thing)

b) How comfortable you are with a little programming

I might do a little script for this if I have some time later, and if you think it may help.

Hi,

Use File -> Import Other... -> Untimed Text (or so - I'm not at a machine with that app)

Down at the bottom select 'Motion Template' and 'TextUp'.

To make it easier for you check the 'Wrap into secondary storyline'

Though my X-Title Importer is only free for 50 titles per 'save session' it might be an alternative.

Use a text file where title blocks are separated by double returns and open as 'Untimed text'.

You can stretch the title out for as long as you need — like across the entire project length. It should be *over* content in the storyline. Right now, the title is *IN* the storyline (which is okay, just put your media content below it.)

Other that setting a Start time and an End Time and stretching out the clip (Title object in this case), there is really no way to vary the amount of time each line is on the screen *other than* adding new lines (empty) as in double or triple spacing (or more) between lines.

You can blade the title into shorter sections, but you'll have to edit out the texts that don't belong to it. For example, you cut the title in half, select the first one and delete the last half of the lines, then select the second one and delete the first half of the lines.

If you add Caption Clip to individual video clips, then only apply the lines used within that clip to the text field. Conversations have a "cadence" generally, so evenly space line appearances (adjusted by newline "pauses") will generally fit the scene "close enough". The point of Caption Clip is convenience and ease of use, not precision. [I tried precision before — Motion and FCPX make a mess of it! and there is a lot of keyframing involved.] If you must have precision, then spherico's method is probably a better way to go.

I did a little script and it is working well enough on my mac, but there are some dependencies and I don't think I would be able to coach you through it, installing some software on your mac, running scripts in the Terminal and so.

However, if you'd be willing to send me two files:

a) An XML file of a project with ONE title set up exactly as you want (it does not matter the text)

b) A text file with one title per line

I could easily send you back an XML file of all one hundred titles on a timeline.

All you'd have to do is copy them to your project and adjust the timings.

You can, if you like, post those files someplace like dropbox and add a link here, and I would do the same.

You will need a version specifically saved for FCPX 10.4.6 — I backdated it for you:

http://fcpxtemplates.com/ngtopics/sc_captionClip1046.zip

Replace the other one with the new one.

Use the Motion Templates/Effects/Text Effects/Caption Clip path.

You will not need to restart FCPX when you make the changes.

This script is something I did for fun is not something I made for distribution.

I can give you the script if you like.

I may take the opportunity to teach myself how to use github and post it there, but I can't promise that I will do that soon.

It is easy to run the script from the command line.

It requires having Python 3 available (at least version 3.6; I suggest getting the Anaconda distribution).

I built this using just Basic Title, without any modifications; that is where having your xml is crucial to get all the titles the way you want them.

Once I get that, I can adjust the script and send it to you.

The user manual is very short :-)

Use it as

python3 pour_titles.py <titles file> <output file>

(or make the script executable and just do

./pour_titles.py <titles file> <output file>

)

For example, if your file is named "titlelist.txt" and you want to create "mytitles.fcpxml" just do

python3 pour_titles.py titlelist.txt mytitles

Create the text in the style you want. Enter the text. Copy it. Paste it. Change the text. Repeat. It’s not that hard.