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SSA converter

An .ssa file is a SubStation Alpha subtitle script — the v4.00 predecessor of Advanced SubStation Alpha. It uses the same [Script Info] / styles / [Events] layout and the same Dialogue timing, with a smaller style table and no v4+ extensions.

Private for supported formats — processed in your browser

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Runs on your device

Drop SSA files here

Batch files can each use a different output. Nothing uploads for local conversions.

Working inputs include camera RAW, browser-local audio/video, PDF, CBZ/CBR comics, office documents, ebooks, markup, 3D models, structured text, images, and archives.

Where SSA comes from

SubStation Alpha was released in 1995 by Kotus as a Windows subtitle editor, and its script format spread through the early digital fansub scene. When the v4.00+ revision arrived as .ass around 2002, .ssa became the legacy form; files from that era still circulate, and every modern renderer keeps reading them.

How SSA works

  • The [V4 Styles] section uses TertiaryColour and AlphaLevel fields that the later [V4+ Styles] table replaced.
  • Dialogue lines carry the same H:MM:SS.cc timing and positional comma fields as Advanced SubStation Alpha.
  • Override tags exist but the v4 vocabulary is smaller — no transforms, clips, or 3D rotation.
  • The file is plain text, historically in a Windows code page rather than UTF-8.

When to use SSA

  • Reading subtitle scripts from late-1990s and early-2000s releases
  • Migrating a legacy SSA archive into a current caption format
  • Feeding players and muxers that still expect the v4 style table

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Still rendered by every libass-based player decades later
  • Simpler than the v4+ revision, so easier to parse and hand-edit
  • Plain text with no binary container

Limitations

  • Superseded by .ass, which every current authoring tool writes instead
  • Legacy encodings mean older files are not reliably UTF-8
  • Styling is lost on conversion to any plain caption format

Compatibility

VLC, mpv, and other libass-based players handle .ssa alongside .ass, and Aegisub opens it for editing. No browser renders it. Novus Convert parses the v4 events locally through the same cue model as .ass and exports to any of the twelve timed-text targets.

The v4 style table and script headers describe presentation only; timing and text survive conversion, styling does not.

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Convert other formats to SSA