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Select 'Set Characters Per Line Width' from the Subtitle menu. Setting a figure of 36, for example, will ensure that only a maximum of 36 characters are allowed per line. Note that as the only way to set the maximum number of characters per line is by using a fixed width font (i.e. a font in which each letter shares the same width), Spot will change the current screen font to Courier New. This will not affect the target broadcast font.

There is a more elegant approach that lets you keep Arial 16 as the edit font. Change the edit line width to a figure that sets the CPL value on the status bar to approximately 36 (e.g. 5000). Because Arial is a proportional font, this does not guarantee that you won’t be able to type more than 36 characters in a line but it will prevent it from happening most of the time. As you work, keep an eye on the two line length indicators above the current subtitle: if they turn red, one of the lines in the subtitle is too long. When you’ve finished working on your file, a 'Too many characters in line check' (or switching to Report view) will pick up any warnings you may have missed.

Restart your computer to ensure that the Windows update has completed (you may need to do this several times) and then check that Windows has not disabled the .NET Framework (see above). Also make sure you run Spot as administrator (i.e. right-click the shortcut you use to open the program and select Run as Administrator - this is not the same as being admin on the machine). Some users have also reported that opening Spot as soon as Windows has loaded will do the trick. If the problem persists, you may need to reinstall the program.

Spot uses Microsoft Word to spell check subtitles so if a version of Word is not installed on your computer, you cannot use the spell checker or the thesaurus. If you do have Word installed and the spell checker is still not working, make sure you have the correct language selected in Spot’s language bar above the video window. If you are working with Spot 6, selecting the new 'Spell check using the file save method' option (Tools, Options, General) forces spelling checks to work as they should.

First of all, ensure you have the latest K-Lite codec pack installed. Reinstall it if necessary. If the problem continues, try converting the video file with Spot's video converter and/or select Video Mixing Renderer 9 on the DirectShow Filters tab of the Media, Preferences window.

Although it’s possible that the video file you are trying to open is corrupt, a more likely explanation is that your system does not have suitable video splitters and decoders installed and therefore cannot play the video correctly. The default decoders on a typical Windows machine will not let you play back MOV or MPEG-2 files, for example, and may cause problems when attempting to play other video formats, such as WMV or MP4. To work around this problem, install a codec pack such as K-Lite and it will automatically configure itself to decode the most common video formats. Spot 6 contains various diagnostic tools that can help to troubleshoot video issues, as well - see the user guide for information on how to view the decoder and splitter being used to play the video and how to choose your own.

This may occur if you are running Windows 10 and have set your Display Settings, Scale and Layout to greater than 100%. To solve the problem, open the Media Preferences window, click the DirectShow Filters tab, select Video Mixing Renderer 9 (put a tick next to it) then click OK. Now open a video - it should automatically resize itself to fit the new Windows scaling size.

Because there is no such thing as 23.976 SMPTE timecode, the burnt-in timecode on a 23.976 frames per second video must be running at 24 frames per second. This means you should open the video at 24 fps and ensure Spot is in 24 fps mode, not 23.976. Note that Netflix videos contain two types of burnt-in timing: one for SMPTE software (such as Spot) and one for media time-based software. It's the SMPTE timecode (normally at the top left of the video) that you need to sync to.

This happens because the EBU STL format does not support these characters. Either write out the ordinal in full ('A primeira pessoa a pisar a Lua'), use 'o.' or 'a.' or choose a different file format.

There are several reasons why this might happen: