Subtitle Color Code Generator

The Subtitle Color Code Generator turns an ordinary hex colour into the exact string a subtitle format expects. Type a value such as FFD700 into the Hex colour (e.g. FFD700) field, choose ASS or HTML in the Format menu, and press Run. The result is a short labelled line you can paste into a style or an override tag, or save as a .txt file.

It exists because of one of the most persistent gotchas in subtitle styling: ASS does not store colours the way the web does. HTML writes red, green, blue in that order, while ASS writes them reversed as blue, green, red behind an &H prefix. Pick a colour in a design tool, paste it into an ASS style unchanged, and gold comes out a strange blue. Fansubbers, motion designers and anyone matching captions to a brand palette lose time to that inversion.

The conversion is mechanical and precise. Any leading # is stripped, then the six digits are split into three pairs treated as red, green and blue. For ASS output the pairs are reassembled in blue-green-red order and wrapped as &H plus the digits plus a closing ampersand; for HTML they are returned in their original order behind a #. Each result is prefixed with a label naming the format, so a copied line stays self-documenting. No file is involved and nothing is transmitted anywhere.

• Two output formats: The Format menu lets you produce either the ASS colour string or the HTML colour string from the same input, so one tool covers styled ASS subtitles and HTML-tagged captions alike.
• Correct byte order every time: For ASS output the red and blue pairs are swapped automatically, which is the single most common mistake when hand-writing subtitle colours.
• Forgiving input: The Hex colour (e.g. FFD700) field accepts a value with or without a leading hash, so you can paste directly from a design tool or a brand guideline.
• Labelled, copy-ready output: The result names the format it produced, so a value pasted into a notes file weeks later still tells you what it is for.
• Sensible default: If the colour field is left empty the tool falls back to white, giving you a valid reference string rather than an error.
• No file needed: Unlike most subtitle utilities this one takes no subtitle at all, so you can look up a colour without opening a project.
• Saveable as text: Results download with a .txt extension, which is handy for building a small palette reference for a series or a client.
• Instant and offline: The conversion runs in your browser with no upload and no waiting, so checking half a dozen shades takes under a minute.

1. Type or paste the colour into the Hex colour (e.g. FFD700) field; a leading hash is fine and will be removed automatically.
2. Open the Format menu and choose the ASS option if you are writing an ASS or SSA style or override tag, or the HTML option if you are working with HTML-style caption markup.
3. Press Run to generate the code; the tool splits the hex into its red, green and blue pairs and reorders them if the ASS format is selected.
4. Read the labelled result line and confirm it names the format you expected before using it.
5. Click Copy to take the string to your clipboard, then paste it into the colour field of your subtitle style or into your override tag.
6. Repeat for each shade in your palette, using Download to save the results as a .txt reference if you will need them again on another episode.
7. Render one cue in your player to confirm the colour on screen matches the swatch you started from.

Example 1 - gold captions that keep coming out blue. A brand guide specifies gold as FFD700, and pasting that straight into an ASS style renders bright blue because ASS reads the pairs in reverse.

Input:  FFD700   Format: ASS
Output: ASS colour: &H00D7FF&

The red pair FF has moved to the end and the blue pair 00 to the front - exactly the swap that turns a wrong colour into the right one.

Example 2 - the same colour for HTML captions. Selecting HTML returns it unreversed.

Input:  #FFD700  Format: HTML
Output: HTML colour: #FFD700

The leading hash is stripped before processing and a clean value is returned, ready to drop into a colour attribute.

• Stop losing time to inverted colours: The blue-red swap in ASS catches almost everyone at some point, and having it done for you removes an entire class of styling bug.
• Match a brand palette exactly: Converting the official hex values means captions carry the same colours as the rest of the production instead of a close-enough guess.
• One reference for two formats: Teams working across ASS styling and HTML-tagged captions can generate both strings from a single source value and keep them in step.
• Fewer render-and-check cycles: Getting the string right the first time saves the slow loop of encoding a clip just to see whether the caption colour looks correct.
• Reusable documentation: Saving results as text gives a series or client a small palette file that anyone on the team can pick up later.
• Nothing leaves your machine: The conversion is done in the browser, so even unpublished brand work stays private.