ASS/SSA to SRT
Convert ASS to SRT subtitles. Cue timings are re-parsed and re-formatted exactly, not merely re-punctuated. ASS/SSA override tags ({\i1}, {\an8}, ...) are carried through as literal text, not re-rendered or stripped. Use Strip subtitle formatting for that. VTT cue settings (align, position, line, size, ...) are dropped, not preserved. This converter carries dialogue and timing, not layout. Runs on your device.
Runs on your device. The file is never uploaded.
ASS/SSA to SRT pulls the Dialogue lines out of the [Events] section and writes numbered SRT cues. Cue text is field ten onward rejoined, so commas inside a line survive, and the hard break codes become real line breaks. A Dialogue line with fewer than ten comma fields stops the run and is quoted back.
Questions
What happens to the styling and positioning?
It is dropped. Only the Dialogue lines in the Events section are read; the script information, style definitions and per-line style, margin and effect fields do not travel into SRT, which has no syntax for them. What you keep is the dialogue and the timings.
Why are there curly-brace tags in my SRT text?
Because override tags inside the dialogue text, things like {\i1} or {\an8}, are carried through as literal text rather than rendered or removed. That is deliberate: this converter moves dialogue and timing and does not rewrite your text. Run Strip subtitle formatting on the result to take those tags out.
Why did it refuse my file?
Three checks can stop it. "ASS/SSA: missing [Events] section" means the file has no Events section at all. "ASS/SSA: no Dialogue lines found in [Events]" means the section is there but empty. A malformed Dialogue line, one with fewer than ten comma-separated fields, is named in the error so you can find it. Comment lines are not read; only Dialogue is.
Does it read SSA as well as ASS?
Yes. The dialogue field order is the same ten fields in both SSA version 4 and ASS version 4 plus, and only the first field's header name differs, which this parser never reads. So .ssa and .ass files both convert.
What about line breaks inside a dialogue line?
The ASS hard-break codes, a backslash with a capital or lowercase N, become real line breaks in the SRT cue. Commas inside the text are safe: the text field is everything from the tenth field onward, rejoined, so a line of dialogue with commas in it is not truncated.
How do I convert SRT into ASS?
Use SRT to ASS/SSA. It writes a minimal header with one Default style, since there is nothing in an SRT file to build real styles from. Both directions run on your device with nothing uploaded. It also rounds each timestamp to the nearest centisecond, because that is the precision ASS records, so a round trip through both tools can move a cue by a few milliseconds.