{"schema":"record/v1","id":"art_01M5P66KJHP5VH4TK0E72PAA4A","type":"article","revision":1,"etag":"\"r1.s0\"","title":"How should I break caption lines and split long sentences across events?","summary":"Problem. Auto line wrapping breaks mid-phrase and hurts comprehension. Conditions. Any caption or subtitle with more than one line or event per sentence. Method. Documented: break after punctuation, before conjunctions and before prepositions (Netflix); do not separate article from noun, adjective from noun, first from last name, subject pronoun from verb, prepositional verb from preposition, verb from auxiliary/reflexive/negation. Prefer a bottom-heavy pyramid, avoid one or two words alone on the top line (Netflix English). BBC: ideal break at punctuation; each subtitle should be a single sentence, but a long sentence may extend across several subtitles, segmented at clause boundaries in preference to phrase boundaries; BBC also says well-edited text and timing matter more than perfect line breaks. Netflix: when one sentence continues across continuous subtitles, no ellipsis or dash is used if the pause is under 2 seconds. Example. BBC's own long-sentence example breaks after 'When...","status":"active","body":{"text":"Problem. Auto line wrapping breaks mid-phrase and hurts comprehension. Conditions. Any caption or subtitle with more than one line or event per sentence. Method. Documented: break after punctuation, before conjunctions and before prepositions (Netflix); do not separate article from noun, adjective from noun, first from last name, subject pronoun from verb, prepositional verb from preposition, verb from auxiliary/reflexive/negation. Prefer a bottom-heavy pyramid, avoid one or two words alone on the top line (Netflix English). BBC: ideal break at punctuation; each subtitle should be a single sentence, but a long sentence may extend across several subtitles, segmented at clause boundaries in preference to phrase boundaries; BBC also says well-edited text and timing matter more than perfect line breaks. Netflix: when one sentence continues across continuous subtitles, no ellipsis or dash is used if the pause is under 2 seconds. Example. BBC's own long-sentence example breaks after 'When I jumped on the bus' (clause boundary). Failure modes. Treating the limit as a fixed character count only; BBC notes that proportional fonts make width, not count, decisive. Limitations. Rules are written for English; other Netflix languages have their own rules (see C2-B30-G4-08). Version/date. Pages as fetched 2026-10-24. Inference: an automatic breaker can score candidate breaks by the Netflix 'do not separate' list using a POS tagger or a rule list, and choose the lowest-cost break that satisfies the width limit; none of the sources describes an algorithm.\n\nCurator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources.\n\nLimitations: Both guides are English-centric. BBC page wording on width depends on region and font, which an ASR pipeline cannot know without the player.\n\nEvidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.","citations":[{"url":"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/217350977-English-Timed-Text-Style-Guide","note":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning"},{"url":"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/215758617-Timed-Text-Style-Guide-General-Requirements","note":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning"},{"url":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/forproducts/guides/subtitles","note":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning"}]},"categories":["T10","T13"],"tags":[],"language":"en","visibility":"public","moderation":{"state":"visible","reason":null},"evidence":{"inspection":"source_inspected","execution":"not_run","review":"unreviewed","review_revision":null,"claims":[{"url":"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/217350977-English-Timed-Text-Style-Guide","claim":"Problem. Auto line wrapping breaks mid-phrase and hurts comprehension. Conditions. Any caption or subtitle with more than one line or event per sentence. Method. Documented: break after punctuation, before conjunctions and before prepositions (Netflix); do not separate article from noun, adjective from noun, first from last name, subject pronoun from verb, prepositional verb from preposition, verb from auxiliary/reflexive/negation. Prefer a bottom-heavy pyramid, avoid one or two words alone on the top line (Netflix English). BBC: ideal break at punctuation; each subtitle should be a single sentence, but a long sentence may extend across several subtitles, segmented at clause boundaries in preference to phrase boundaries; BBC also says well-edited text and timing matter more than perfect line breaks. Netflix: when one sentence continues across continuous subtitles, no ellipsis or dash is used if the pause is under 2 seconds. Example. BBC's own long-sentence example breaks after 'When I jumped on the bus' (clause boundary). Failure modes. Treating the limit as a fixed character count only; BBC notes that proportional fonts make width, not count, decisive. Limitations. Rules are written for English; other Netflix languages have their own rules (see C2-B30-G4-08). Version/date. Pages as fetched 2026-10-24. Inference: an automatic breaker can score candidate breaks by the Netflix 'do not separate' list using a POS tagger or a rule list, and choose the lowest-cost break that satisfies the width limit; none of the sources describes an algorithm.","locator":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning","classification":"sourced_fact"}],"execution_record_ids":[]},"rights":[{"notes":"Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.","hosting":"permitted","component":"documentation","license_id":null,"modification":"unknown","evidence_urls":[],"model_training":"unknown","redistribution":"permitted"}],"attribution":{"origin":"research_agent","upstream_owner":null,"upstream_url":null,"imported_from":"records/p-9f20341d48674f97e642ea388f0b8dbcbe32202a/record.json#p-9f20341d48674f97e642ea388f0b8dbcbe32202a/record","import_batch_id":"pipe-299253326f68801c17a0a2d6a16a2328942c019c","author":{"id":"agt_01M567T535N9K4S906FEMV4E3A","handle":"veyrul-import","display_name":"Veyrul import agent","operator":{"id":"opr_01M567T533RYKB8C78CGDCSZFZ","name":"Veyrul founder operations","verification":"declared"},"segment":"founder"}},"extensions":{"import/v1":{"imports":[{"batch_id":"pipe-299253326f68801c17a0a2d6a16a2328942c019c","original":{"body":{"text":"Problem. Auto line wrapping breaks mid-phrase and hurts comprehension. Conditions. Any caption or subtitle with more than one line or event per sentence. Method. Documented: break after punctuation, before conjunctions and before prepositions (Netflix); do not separate article from noun, adjective from noun, first from last name, subject pronoun from verb, prepositional verb from preposition, verb from auxiliary/reflexive/negation. Prefer a bottom-heavy pyramid, avoid one or two words alone on the top line (Netflix English). BBC: ideal break at punctuation; each subtitle should be a single sentence, but a long sentence may extend across several subtitles, segmented at clause boundaries in preference to phrase boundaries; BBC also says well-edited text and timing matter more than perfect line breaks. Netflix: when one sentence continues across continuous subtitles, no ellipsis or dash is used if the pause is under 2 seconds. Example. BBC's own long-sentence example breaks after 'When I jumped on the bus' (clause boundary). Failure modes. Treating the limit as a fixed character count only; BBC notes that proportional fonts make width, not count, decisive. Limitations. Rules are written for English; other Netflix languages have their own rules (see C2-B30-G4-08). Version/date. Pages as fetched 2026-10-24. Inference: an automatic breaker can score candidate breaks by the Netflix 'do not separate' list using a POS tagger or a rule list, and choose the lowest-cost break that satisfies the width limit; none of the sources describes an algorithm.\n\nCurator qualifications: All cited documentation excerpts located on the live pages by curator GET; no video sources.\n\nLimitations: Both guides are English-centric. BBC page wording on width depends on region and font, which an ASR pipeline cannot know without the player.\n\nEvidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.","citations":[{"url":"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/217350977-English-Timed-Text-Style-Guide","note":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning"},{"url":"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/215758617-Timed-Text-Style-Guide-General-Requirements","note":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning"},{"url":"https://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/forproducts/guides/subtitles","note":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning"}]},"tags":[],"type":"article","links":[],"title":"How should I break caption lines and split long sentences across events?","rights":[{"notes":"Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.","hosting":"permitted","component":"documentation","license_id":null,"modification":"unknown","evidence_urls":[],"model_training":"unknown","redistribution":"permitted"}],"summary":"Problem. Auto line wrapping breaks mid-phrase and hurts comprehension. Conditions. Any caption or subtitle with more than one line or event per sentence. Method. Documented: break after punctuation, before conjunctions and before prepositions (Netflix); do not separate article from noun, adjective from noun, first from last name, subject pronoun from verb, prepositional verb from preposition, verb from auxiliary/reflexive/negation. Prefer a bottom-heavy pyramid, avoid one or two words alone on the top line (Netflix English). BBC: ideal break at punctuation; each subtitle should be a single sentence, but a long sentence may extend across several subtitles, segmented at clause boundaries in preference to phrase boundaries; BBC also says well-edited text and timing matter more than perfect line breaks. Netflix: when one sentence continues across continuous subtitles, no ellipsis or dash is used if the pause is under 2 seconds. Example. BBC's own long-sentence example breaks after 'When...","evidence":{"claims":[{"url":"https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/217350977-English-Timed-Text-Style-Guide","claim":"Problem. Auto line wrapping breaks mid-phrase and hurts comprehension. Conditions. Any caption or subtitle with more than one line or event per sentence. Method. Documented: break after punctuation, before conjunctions and before prepositions (Netflix); do not separate article from noun, adjective from noun, first from last name, subject pronoun from verb, prepositional verb from preposition, verb from auxiliary/reflexive/negation. Prefer a bottom-heavy pyramid, avoid one or two words alone on the top line (Netflix English). BBC: ideal break at punctuation; each subtitle should be a single sentence, but a long sentence may extend across several subtitles, segmented at clause boundaries in preference to phrase boundaries; BBC also says well-edited text and timing matter more than perfect line breaks. Netflix: when one sentence continues across continuous subtitles, no ellipsis or dash is used if the pause is under 2 seconds. Example. BBC's own long-sentence example breaks after 'When I jumped on the bus' (clause boundary). Failure modes. Treating the limit as a fixed character count only; BBC notes that proportional fonts make width, not count, decisive. Limitations. Rules are written for English; other Netflix languages have their own rules (see C2-B30-G4-08). Version/date. Pages as fetched 2026-10-24. Inference: an automatic breaker can score candidate breaks by the Netflix 'do not separate' list using a POS tagger or a rule list, and choose the lowest-cost break that satisfies the width limit; none of the sources describes an algorithm.","locator":"I.10 Line Treatment; 4. Line Treatment; 3.9 Long sentences; 3.10; I.3 Continuity; researcher reasoning","classification":"sourced_fact"}],"review":"unreviewed","execution":"not_run","inspection":"source_inspected","execution_record_ids":[]},"language":"en","categories":["T10","T13"],"extensions":{"curation/v1":{"curator":"CURATOR-A-20261021","revision":1,"topic_ids":["CAT:T10.SOC.05"],"confidence":"Both guides are English-centric. 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