To load a subtitle file click the “File/Load Subtitle” menu of Subtitle Workshop or press [Ctrl]+[O] keys. Additionally, you can drop your file into the main window, or if the extensions are associated, just double click on the subtitle file you wish to open.

If you get the “The file is a bad subtitle or an unsupported format” error message, there is still some chance you can load the file. First of all you MUST be sure about the format of the file, if you are, then proceed like this:

1. Click the “File/Load subtitle” menu.
2. A dialog will pop up, you have to select the right filter in it (there is a combo box where you see the “All supported files” text, you have to click the button with the arrow that is next to it and select the format of the file).
3. Once you have done this, press the Open button in the dialog.

This way there will be no automatic format recognition nor file check

To load a video file click the “Movie/Open” menu or press the [Ctrl]+[P] keys. If you get the “File is not a valid video file” error message, make sure you have the right codecs installed. If you don’t, download Coda Codec Pack, it should fix most of the playback problems.

Using Subtitle Workshop you can create new files from scratch, and then save them in any format. To do so, click the “File/New subtitle…” menu or press [Ctrl]+[N] keys. Once you have done this, you can start adding subtitles, and then save the file by the “File/Save” menu or pressing [Ctrl]+[S] keys.

Cf. How to split your subtitles file with Subtitle Workshop