Soluții

How to fix your streaming subtitles if they are too small

Before getting into specific streaming services and apps, it might be best to point out that while most make subtitle customization fairly painless, once you know where to look, the paths to them vary more than they should.

As a general rule, if subtitles are something you know you want to have consistently on across all your streaming apps, all the major devices have system-level subtitle and captioning settings that you can set and that sometimes override in-app defaults across all your streaming apps at once.

With all of them, you can customize things like fonts, font size, font color, background color, opacity, edged style, highlights, and more. You can also create new styles and save them as presets.

For Apple TV: On the Apple TV device, go to Settings > Accessibility > Subtitles and Captioning > Style. Here you’ll be able to adjust all kinds of subtitle formatting options.

For Fire TV: Open the Settings menu and choose Accessibility > Closed Caption, where you’ll find menu items for text, text background, and more.

For Roku: From the Settings menu, select Accessibility > Captions style for a wide range of options.

For Android TV: From the Settings menu, navigate to Device Preferences > Accessibility > Captions.

For Google TV: From the Home Screen, select Settings > Accessibility > Caption preferences > Caption size and style.

Be aware that some apps like Netflix have their own subtitle settings that are unaffected by this, while others rely on these system-level settings.

Netflix

Profile-based settings that sync across all your devices

As mentioned above, Netflix takes care of its own subtitle preferences, which are tied to your account profile, and can be adjusted differently for each. The best way to make these changes is through a web browser, which will sync across the Netflix apps on all your devices.

  1. At Netflix.com, log in to your account and select your profile.
  2. From the dropdown menu, select Account > Profiles > and then the profile you want to change.
  3. Under Subtitle Appearance, you’ll find a range of great modifications you can make—from text size, font, and text color to adding drop shadowing and background colors to make text stand out over busy images.
  4. Make the changes you want, which you’ll be able to preview before hitting save.
  5. You can always choose Restore to Default if you want to start again or walk away.
  6. The changes will take effect across your profile on all your signed-in devices.

On smart TVs or streaming devices like Apple TV, Fire TV Stick, or Roku, depending on your app’s version, you may also be able to access these settings by pausing a video you’re watching, and choosing the gear icon.

Prime Video

Save presets that you can switch between during playback

Amazon Prime Video offers one of the more flexible subtitle systems, allowing you to save multiple style presets and switch between them during playback, often across several devices. Like Netflix, though, one of the best ways to adjust and personalize them is on the web.

  1. In a web browser, while a video is playing, you can click or tap the Subtitles & Audio icon (speech bubble) in the upper-right corner of the player.
  2. Select Subtitles Settings from the menu.
  3. Here you can adjust font size and choose from four presets.

To build and manage those presets so you can access them on the other devices and apps that allow it, though, the best way to adjust is on the web. Log in to primevideo.com and through your profile, go to Account & Settings > Subtitles, where you can edit up to four saved presets.

HBO Max

Different options depending on how you’re watching

Adjusting subtitle settings on HBO Max (beyond just turning them on and off, etc.) varies depending on how you’re watching.

On the web: At hbomax.com, click your profile, then go to Settings > Subtitle Style to adjust font, color, size, and opacity.

On TV and mobile devices: Select the Audio and Subtitles icon during playback for basic styling. For size controls and more, this is handled at the device level (see the top of this post).

Disney+

Access subtitle options from various points

Disney+ has several different ways to adjust subtitle formatting depending on how you’re watching.

On mobile devices that run iOS and Android, they’re accessed through the system’s Settings > Accessibility menus.

On smart TVs, you can access it while watching a video. Press pause and then select the Audio & Subtitles menu that appears at the top right. Then select the Subtitle Styling option.

Apple TV and Fire TV also use their system-level preferences that can be accessed through their Settings > Accessibility and captioning options.

If you watch Disney+ through a web browser, you can access them by pausing a video and selecting Audio & Subtitles in the top right corner. A Gear icon will appear, which will lead to the Subtitle Styling settings. Make your style adjustments and click the back arrow to continue watching.

[mai mult...]

How to turn Chrome’s address bar into a notepad with one line of text

This “hack” is super simple. All you have to do is open Google Chrome and type or copy the following into the address bar:

data:text/html, <html contenteditable> That’s pretty much it. Now you can use that page as a no-frills word processor. It’s handy to have it when you want to write notes while working, take a phone call, or, in my case, jot down ideas and thoughts while writing.

The best thing about this DIY notepad is that it works in most modern browsers. I’ve tested it in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, but it should work in pretty much every browser you might be using, no matter how obscure it is. You aren’t limited to desktop browsers either. I tried taking notes in the Android versions of Chrome and DuckDuckGo, and I managed to turn them into notepads just by copying the command into their address bar and opening the page.

So why would anyone use this? Well, as I’ve said, it can be handy to have a barebones note-taking page in your browser for times when you want to quickly jot something down without having to open your preferred note-taking app or click through multiple menus to access an online notepad.

You can bookmark the page and open it in a second when you’re working and want to write down something your coworker or boss said, or jot down a quick note or two during a phone or video call. When you’re in an online meeting and get a great idea but have to wait for your turn to speak, you can immediately write it down instead of opening a separate app.

I occasionally use this browser-based notepad when working on an article or doing research. It’s great for capturing fleeting thoughts I might otherwise forget, jotting down subheading ideas, pasting useful links, or using it as a temporary note-taking space I can simply close and forget about once I’m done.

This browser notepad works great as a dead-simple note-taking app, but the fact that it’s just a tiny code snippet also means you shouldn’t expect a slew of features. You can’t adjust the font size, spacing, margins, or any of that fancy stuff. Your notes also won’t be saved automatically when you close the browser or reload the page. The only way to save them is by saving the entire page using the “Save page as…” option.

You get the default font, can press Enter to insert line breaks, use basic keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+I, Ctrl+B, Ctrl+U), and copy and paste text—and that’s about it. There’s no support for Markdown or any other advanced feature.

If this hack sounds intriguing but you find the default version too barebones, check out this Medium article and paste the code shared there into your browser’s address bar. You’ll get a nicer-looking yet still dead-simple note-taking space you can customize to your liking. You can adjust margins, change the background, and more by tweaking the code. The downside is that this version won’t save your work either, but at least it looks much better than the original.

If you want an even more powerful browser notepad that automatically saves what you write, head over to this Reddit post and follow the instructions (the code should work fine in most browsers). In a minute or so, you’ll have your own browser notepad you can bookmark and use whenever you want to jot something down, with the added benefit of everything being saved automatically. You can edit the font size and many other elements directly in the code—just open the .htm file you created with Notepad and go wild.

While they’re as simple as possible and will never replace proper, robust note-taking apps, these browser-based notepads are neat to have. Sometimes, we just want to write something down in a hurry, and being able to open one with a single click can be handy.

Also, sometimes I just want to jot something down while working or browsing the web, use that info a few minutes later, and then simply close the page and forget about it. Not every note needs to be formatted or saved.

[mai mult...]