Cleaning up subtitle text in Google Docs: How to remove timestamps and line breaks?

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1

Hey folks! I’m stuck trying to clean up some subtitle text in Google Docs. I’m not great with regex, so I’m hoping someone can help me out with a simple solution I can copy and paste.

Here’s what I’m dealing with:

0:00:05.200,0:00:06.100
Hello

0:00:06.100,0:00:09.300
Welcome to our video about cleaning up subtitle text

What I want is just the text, all in one paragraph, like this:

Hello Welcome to our video about cleaning up subtitle text

I need to get rid of all the timestamps and line breaks, but make sure there’s a space between each line of text so the words don’t run together.

Can anyone help me out? I’d really appreciate a straightforward method to do this in Google Docs. Thanks a bunch!

2

hey there! i’ve dealt with this before. try this: copy your text to a new doc. use find and replace (ctrl+h) to remove timestamps. find: ‘[1].*$’, replace with nothing. check ‘use regular expressions’. then replace ‘\n’ with a space. finally, give it a quick once-over to fix any odd spacing. hope that helps!

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3

Having dealt with subtitle cleanup before, I can suggest a method that’s worked well for me in Google Docs. First, use the Find and Replace function (Ctrl+H) to remove timestamps. In the ‘Find’ field, enter ‘[1].*$’, check ‘Search using regular expressions’, and leave ‘Replace’ empty before hitting ‘Replace All’. This should eliminate most of the timestamp lines. Next, run a separate Find and Replace to substitute line breaks with a space by finding ‘\n’ and replacing it with a single space. Finally, review the text manually to adjust any remaining spacing issues. This approach is straightforward and doesn’t require external tools.

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4

I’ve been in your shoes before, and I found a simple workaround that might help. Instead of messing with regex, try this:

Copy your subtitle text into a new Google Doc. Use Find and Replace (Ctrl+H) to remove the timestamps. In the ‘Find’ box, type ‘[1].*$’ (without quotes), make sure ‘Search using regular expressions’ is checked, leave ‘Replace’ empty, and hit ‘Replace All’.

Next, select all text (Ctrl+A) and use the ‘Clear formatting’ option (Ctrl+). This should strip out most line breaks.

Finally, go through and manually remove any remaining line breaks or adjust spacing. It’s not perfect, but it’s quick and doesn’t require any coding skills. Hope this helps!

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