Persian & Arabic subtitle repair
Fix Persian and Arabic subtitles: garbled letters and punctuation on the wrong side
Upload Persian, Arabic, Urdu or other right-to-left subtitles that show strange characters such as سلام or ÓáÇã, or put question marks and periods at the wrong end of the line, and get them back as clean UTF-8. Old Windows-1256 files are converted, text that was already garbled is turned back into letters, misplaced punctuation is moved back, and every line gets an invisible right-to-left mark. Jobs with up to 3,000 lines are free in full; a bigger job, such as a season in a ZIP, is $5 paid once. A chatbot can tidy a few lines of readable text, but it cannot see the original bytes of a garbled file.
- Windows-1256 files converted to UTF-8 (Hebrew files from the Hebrew Windows encoding)
- Garbled text such as سلام or ÓáÇã turned back into Persian or Arabic letters
- Punctuation and dialogue dashes moved back to the correct end of the line
- An invisible right-to-left mark at the start and end of every line
- Arabic ي and ك replaced with ی and ک for Persian, Dari, Urdu and Sorani
- Free in full up to 3,000 lines; a whole season in a ZIP for $5
What you get back
Each file comes back under the same name, in the same format, as UTF-8 with a byte order mark; several files download as one ZIP. You can also download everything as SRT. Before you download, every line is shown on screen, with a summary of what was found: which encoding the files were in, whether garbled letters were repaired, and whether punctuation was moved.
- Letters readable in any modern player, phone or smart TV that has a Persian or Arabic font.
- Question marks, periods and commas at the end of the sentence, and the dialogue dash at the start, when the file had them reversed.
- For Persian, Dari, Urdu and Sorani, ی and ک instead of the Arabic ي and ك, and ؟ ، ؛ instead of ? , ; for every language except Hebrew. Commas inside numbers such as 1,000 are left alone.
- Formatting untouched: tags such as <i>, {\an8}, {\pos(10,20)} or <font color=…> stay where they were, and ASS styles are kept.
- SRT with Windows line endings. SAMI and SubViewer files come back as SRT; SRT, VTT, ASS, SSA and MicroDVD SUB come back as themselves.
Repairing Persian subtitles with a chatbot, and with this tool
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini read and write Persian and Arabic well, and if you paste a few readable lines they can fix punctuation or letters. A broken subtitle file is a different problem: the damage is in the bytes, and the file is long.
| Your situation | A chatbot | This tool |
|---|---|---|
| A few readable lines with ? on the wrong side | Can usually rewrite them correctly | Fixes them too, and keeps the time codes |
| A Windows-1256 file that shows boxes or ???? | Sees the text only after it is already damaged by pasting | Reads the original bytes and converts them to UTF-8 |
| Text that shows as سلام or ÓáÇã | May guess at the words and get some wrong | Reverses the wrong decoding byte by byte, so every letter comes back |
| A full movie of dialogue | Long replies tend to stop partway or change time codes | Repairs every line, up to 50,000 lines per job |
| Players that ignore right-to-left text direction | Returns plain text | Adds an invisible right-to-left mark to every line |
| A whole season in a ZIP | One file per chat | Every file repaired and returned in one ZIP, same names |
How to fix Persian or Arabic subtitles
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1
Upload the broken files
Drop in one file, several, or a ZIP of a season, and choose the language. SRT, VTT, ASS, SSA, SUB and SAMI files are accepted.
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2
Check the lines on screen
Read a few lines to confirm the letters and punctuation look right; the summary says what was repaired. Edit any line in place. Jobs up to 3,000 lines are free in full.
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3
Download
Download the files in their own format or as SRT, with the same names. Bigger jobs unlock for $5, paid once.
Why broken Persian subtitles trip up general AI assistants
Most broken Persian and Arabic subtitles are not badly written. They were saved years ago in Windows-1256, the old Windows encoding for Arabic script, and a modern player that expects UTF-8 shows question marks, boxes or random Latin letters. Sometimes the file was then opened in the wrong encoding and saved again, which turns سلام into سلام or ÓáÇã on every line.
A chat assistant only sees what you paste, and by then the text is already damaged. It can guess at common words, but a guess is not a repair, and a full film is too long for one reply. This tool works on the bytes: it recognizes which wrong decoding happened, reverses it, and reads the letters back correctly. The rest of the repair, punctuation and direction marks, follows fixed rules applied to every line.
What it repairs, in order
- Encoding: files saved in Windows-1256 (or the Hebrew Windows encoding for Hebrew) are converted to UTF-8.
- Garbled text: text that was read in the wrong encoding and saved again, appearing as سلام or ÓáÇã, is converted back.
- Punctuation: when the file shows the reversed pattern throughout, with lines such as ".سلام" or "?خوبی" and the dialogue dash at the end, punctuation goes back to the end and the dash to the start. A normal file with a deliberate leading "..." is left alone.
- Direction: old direction control characters are removed and an invisible right-to-left mark is added at the start and end of every line. You can leave the marks out if your player shows them as boxes.
- Letters: for Persian, Dari, Urdu and Sorani, Arabic ي and ك become ی and ک.
- Punctuation marks: ? , ; become ؟ ، ؛, except commas inside numbers. Hebrew keeps Latin punctuation.
Who uses it
- Viewers with Persian subtitles from older subtitle sites that show strange characters in VLC or on a TV
- Plex, Kodi, Infuse and Jellyfin users whose Arabic-script subtitles show punctuation at the wrong end
- Families converting a whole series of Persian or Dari subtitles for a smart TV
- Urdu, Pashto, Sorani Kurdish and Sindhi viewers with old Windows-encoded files
- Translators and subtitlers cleaning up files before delivery
What it cannot fix
If your TV or player has no font for Arabic script, it will show boxes whatever the file contains; no change to the file can fix that. Try a different player app, or a media server that can burn subtitles into the picture. If a file was saved with real question marks in place of the letters, the letters are gone, and you need another copy of the subtitles.
It does not translate, re-time or convert between formats. For timing, use Fix Subtitle Sync; for another language, the Subtitle Translator. Image-based subtitles, such as VobSub .sub/.idx and Blu-ray .sup, are not supported.
By language and situation
Fix Persian subtitles that show strange characters
Persian subtitles that appear as سلام, ÓáÇã, rows of question marks or empty boxes are almost always reada...
Read more →Convert Persian subtitles from Windows-1256 to UTF-8
A large share of older Persian subtitles were saved in Windows-1256, the Arabic-script encoding of Windows at...
Read more →Fix Arabic subtitles with punctuation on the wrong side
A question mark at the start of an Arabic sentence instead of the end, a dash hanging after the dialogue, a pe...
Read more →Fix Persian subtitles for Plex and smart TVs
A Persian subtitle that reads fine on a laptop can show gibberish, boxes or reversed punctuation once it goes...
Read more →Fix broken Urdu subtitles
Urdu subtitles for dramas and films often circulate as old files saved in Windows-1256, or as files already da...
Read more →What it costs
Short jobs, first part
Free
Jobs with up to 3,000 subtitle lines in total are repaired in full, downloads included; one movie is usually under that. Bigger jobs show the first block on screen. 1 job a day without an account, 3 with a free account.
Whole job
$5
One payment for every file in the job: up to 50 files or a ZIP, and 50,000 lines. No subscription.
Unlimited
$19 / week
Every tool on the site, with subtitle jobs of up to 200,000 lines.
Questions and answers
Can ChatGPT fix garbled Persian subtitles?
It can tidy a few lines of readable text you paste. A file that shows سلام, ÓáÇã or boxes is damaged at the byte level, and pasting it into a chat loses the information needed to reverse it; a full film is also too long for one reply. This tool repairs the bytes and every line in code.
Why do my Persian subtitles show strange characters?
Usually the file is in Windows-1256 and your player reads it as UTF-8 or as a Western encoding, or it was saved again after being read the wrong way. All of these can be reversed as long as the letters were not replaced by real question marks.
Which languages does it support?
Persian (Farsi), Dari, Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, Kurdish (Sorani), Sindhi and Hebrew. The language choice decides which letter and punctuation rules apply.
Why are question marks and periods on the wrong side?
Either the player lays the line out left to right, or the file was saved with punctuation moved to the front so it looked right in such a player. The tool moves reversed punctuation back when the file shows that pattern and adds right-to-left marks so players put it at the correct end.
My player shows small boxes after the repair. What do I do?
Some older players draw the invisible right-to-left marks as boxes. Run the file again with the marks left out. If every letter is a box, your device has no Arabic-script font, which a file cannot fix.
Can I repair a whole season at once?
Yes. Upload up to 50 files or a ZIP with the season inside. Every file comes back with the same name and format, together in one ZIP.
Is it free?
Jobs with up to 3,000 subtitle lines in total are free in full, downloads included, with no account. Bigger jobs show the first block free; the whole job, up to 50 files and 50,000 lines, is $5 paid once. Unlimited is $19 a week.
Does it change tags or styling?
No. Tags such as {\pos(10,20)}, {\an8}, <i> and <font color=…> stay as they are, and ASS files keep their styles. Only the text between the tags is repaired.
Are my files private?
Only you can open your job. No AI model is involved, so the subtitle text is not sent to any model provider. Jobs uploaded without an account are deleted after 7 days, and you can delete any job yourself at any time.
Updated October 25, 2026 · APPFACT STUDIO LTD