double quotation in .ass subtitles look different than in Microsoft Word

[DBCollector]

Hi, I'm a bit new to .ass subtitles, but I can generally figure things out with the documentation available.

But I cannot figure out why double quotation marks from the .ass file look completely different in the video player from what is shown in Microsoft Word. The double quotation marks don't look like a 6 and a 9 as they should and as they do in Word, but instead look like 2 vertical straight lines when the ass subtitles are played by both VLC and MPC-HC (I don't have any other players installed). I tried using a few different fonts where the quotations in Word look like a 6 or 9, but they are all showing as different styles of vertical lines when the .ass subtitles are used in the video.

I am trying to emulate the ending credits from a video using .ass subtitles, and I am using the font called "Arial Rounded MT Bold" which seems to be the exact font that was used in the video, so I would prefer to use that font for the quotes if possible.

Any help would be appreciated very much. I've spent 2 hours trying to figure this out without any luck.


Here is the style line and the dialogue line in my subtitle file if it helps:

[Script Info]
Title:
ScriptType: v4.00+
PlayDepth: 0
PlayResX: 1920
ScaledBorderAndShadow: Yes
WrapStyle: 3
PlayResY: 1080
YCbCr Matrix: None

[V4+ Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding
Style: Creditssmall1,Arial Rounded MT Bold,66.8,&H00FFFFFF,&H00FFFFFF,&H00000000,&H00FFF FFF,0,0,0,0,100,100,0.9,0,1,4,0,2,0,0,50,1

Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:20:48.80,0:20:52.86,Creditssmall1,,0,0,0,,{\po s(942.6,821.5)}"Text Between Quotes"

[El Heggunte]

First of all, use a DECENT plain-text editor to check whether the .ASS file actually uses the characters you want to be displayed.
µ$oft Word is a word processor, not a text editor, and I.I.R.C., its default behaviour is to replace various characters with those that the stupid programmers hired by µ$oft think are "the right ones"


" — this is a "simple" quotation mark (unicode 0022)

« » — these are double-angle quotation marks (unicode 00AB and 00BB)

“ ” — these are double quotation marks (unicode 201C and 201D)

‟ „ — these are the high and the low "9-shaped" quotation marks (unicode 201F and 201E)

[DBCollector]

Thank you so much!

Actually I just use notepad for .ass files to add the dialog and styles after copying another subtitle file and erasing the dialog and styles. I just like the simple GUI that uses the whole window for the text. I use Editpad Light for other things that notepad really sucks for.

Other than the double angle quotation marks you mentioned and Japanese double quotation marks (which are completely different), I didn't know there were double quotation marks other than what is on a keyboard, and that "Word" changes them to different double quotation marks. I thought it was just the font that changes the way the double quotation marks look and that Microsoft word just knows to display the second quotation mark upside down rather than there being separate left and right double quotation mark characters (Word uses unicode 201C and 201D).

In those 2 hours I wasted all I would have had to do was to copy the quotation marks from word to the .ass file to see that they weren't the same quotation marks. But it didn't occur to me that they could be different since I typed them from the keyboard in both cases.

I also had to convert the text file from ANSI to Unicode (I saved as UTF-8 using notepad), otherwise they displayed as a square box when displayed in the video since they are unicode characters. So it is strange to me that notepad saved the unicode 201C and 201D quotes in ANSI without loosing the characters, and when saving the file in ANSI it didn't pop up the message that "the file needs to be saved in unicode or the characters will be lost" which I guess is because it was able to save those characters in ANSI. I would be interested to know why notepad was able to save those unicode quotes in ANSI. Editpad light does the same thing.

I really appreciate your help. I spent so much time on these subtitles, especially since I edited the .ass file with a text editor. So having the proper quotation marks just feels like a great relief. Thanks again!

[El Heggunte]

You are welcome.

I also had to convert the text file from ANSI to Unicode (I saved as UTF-8 using notepad), otherwise they displayed as a square box when displayed in the video since they are unicode characters. So it is strange to me that notepad saved the unicode 201C and 201D quotes in ANSI without loosing the characters, and when saving the file in ANSI it didn't pop up the message that "the file needs to be saved in unicode or the characters will be lost" which I guess is because it was able to save those characters in ANSI.

I would be interested to know why notepad was able to save those unicode quotes in ANSI. Editpad light does the same thing.

My educated-guess...
there are some other characters which technically are NOT part of the ANSI standard BUT
are regarded as part of the ANSI charset because Microsoft decided that Windows should support them thru the ancient ALT codes
So, for example, the euro currency symbol (€) can be typed thru ALT + 0128, even though its codepoint is outside the ANSI range (0000—00FF).

[DBCollector]

Thanks, that sounds like the only possible explanation.

I just tried the ANSI version of my .ass file with MPC-HC and it shows the double quotes correctly, whereas VLC only shows square boxes.

I don't want to waste anyones time since my problem has been solved by El Heggunte. But just to share my thoughts....

I don't know if characters technically not part of the ANSI Standard have anything to do with SSA .ass file specifications allowing those characters with ANSI files, or if it is just the media player that has to be programmed to allow those characters to work and it has nothing to do with the SSA .ass file specifications. I say that since I read that media players can be programmed to allow .ass style options values (eg. 1, 2, 3, 4) to be out of the range of what is supported by the SSA .ass file specifications, but if you do that then you will have different results in different media players. So I assume the media player can be proggrammed to be able to display those characters either way.

I wonder if those characters that are technically not part of the ANSI standard work in programs for other operating systems or if for some reason they are limited to Windows programs. Since MPC-HC mimics Windows media player 6.4 look and feel, I imagine that maybe the ability to support those characters came from Windows media player 6.4.