Some file types like Ogg or Matroska can have subtitles in them along with audio and video. Often they have several internal subtitles, usually in different languages. DVD video disks also often come with subtitles on them. KPlayer finds any of those subtitles and lists them on the Subtitles submenu of the Player menu. If the languages of the subtitles are known, the entries on the submenu are labelled with the language names.

Selecting a subtitle track from the submenu displays the subtitles in the video area. The None option disables subtitle display for the current file, title, track or stream. KPlayer remembers the subtitle selection and displays the same subtitles the next time you play the file. The Subtitles section of the File Properties is another place where you can see and select the subtitle track to be displayed when playing a video.

To load subtitles from a separate file or files, choose File->Load Subtitles.... KPlayer will display subtitles from the first of the loaded files in the video area if the video is playing or the next time you play it. You can also drag and drop subtitle files from Konqueror File Manager and drop them anywhere in KPlayer except the multimedia library to load and display them.

The Subtitles submenu of the Player menu shows the name of the loaded external subtitle file along with any internal subtitle tracks and the None option as described above. You can freely switch between all the available subtitles. KPlayer will display the ones you choose without any interruption in video and audio playback. It will also remember your choice and load the subtitles again the next time you play the same file or URL.

The Subtitles section of the File Properties also shows and lets you change the external subtitle path. In some cases you may also need to tell KPlayer if they are VobSub or normal subtitles. This happens when you choose the .sub file when loading VobSub subtitles. Pointing KPlayer to the .idx or .ifo file should allow it to display the VobSub subtitles correctly without the need to specify the external subtitle type explicitly.

You can also let KPlayer load subtitles automatically by placing them in the same directory as the movie and giving them the same name as the movie and the correct subtitle extension. For example, if you play a file called Carandiru.avi, and you have srt subtitles for it, you can name the subtitle file Carandiru.srt, Carandiru.SRT, Carandiru.avi.srt or Carandiru.avi.SRT.

KPlayer will autoload subtitle types you choose on the Subtitles page in KPlayer Settings. Autoloading only works for local files, and KPlayer will not remember autoloaded subtitles, rather it will autoload them every time.

The Subtitles section of the KPlayer Settings dialog allows you to customize the way subtitles are displayed in the video area. You can select the font face, bold and italic style, text size and autoscaling, font outline and text width.

There is also an option to add black areas below and above the video and show the subtitles in them. That only works when the video aspect ratio is greater than the one you choose. Normally you should choose the aspect ratio to match your monitor, which is 4:3 for a regular monitor or 16:9 for a wide one.

Another important option is the subtitle encoding. You may need to select it if MPlayer does not display your subtitles correctly. If most of your subtitle files have the same encoding, you can select it in KPlayer Settings. But if some of them have different encoding, go to the Subtitles section of the File Properties and select the encoding there. If the framerate of the subtitles is different from the framerate of the video, you can specify the subtitle framerate in the File Properties as well.

The vertical position of the subtitles and their delay relative to video can be changed using commands on the Subtitles submenu of the Player menu. As usual, using keyboard shortcuts is recommended. By default KPlayer will remember the subtitle delay for each file or URL, and will keep the vertical position across files. This can be changed on the Controls page in KPlayer Settings.

There are a few good places for finding subtitles on the Net, among them Titles.box.sk, OpenSubtitles.org and DivXSubtitles.net. Make sure to enable popup blocking before going to those sites though.