Add Polished Narration to Your Courses with the Text-to-Speech Feature in Storyline

Adding narration to your courses is a great way to bring your e-learning content to life. And with Storyline 360, you don’t need to hire a professional voice actor or recruit a colleague to record your narration; you can quickly and easily create narration for your courses with the integrated text-to-speech feature.

Storyline 360 automatically converts text into polished, natural-sounding audio narration. All you have to do is write the “script”—Storyline 360 does the rest! And with tons of narrator voices, you can choose one that has the right feel for your course.

Text-to-speech also helps you create localized courses efficiently. Simply translate your narration text, then pick the language for your narrator to make sure the text is pronounced perfectly. As a bonus, you can automatically add closed captions to your course when you add narration.

It’s really easy to record, update, and caption narration for your Storyline 360 courses using the text-to-speech feature. Let’s take a closer look at how it works.

How to Convert Text to Speech in Storyline 360

Using the text-to-speech feature in Storyline 360 is simple and intuitive. In Storyline 360, click on the Insert tab on the ribbon and click the Audio drop-down menu. There you’ll click on Text-to-Speech, select a language, and choose the voice you’d like to use. You can preview all the different voices to see which one works best for your course. If you’d like to automatically create closed captions for your narration, just check the option.

You can convert up to 10,000 characters at a time by typing or pasting your text directly into the text entry field. Using the Slide Notes area to store your narration script? We’ve got you covered. There’s a handy Copy from Slide Notes button that will bring over the text from your slide notes in one click.

When you click the Insert button, the text in the field will be converted into an audio file, which will be inserted into the slide timeline as an audio object. If you need to make changes to the audio clip you’ve already created, simply right-click on the audio object in the timeline and select Text-to-Speech. You’ll see the original text and you can make your narration edits right there, which is a real time-saver.

Text-to-speech makes it quick and easy for you to add the narration you need to your courses, in just a few clicks. Do you have any tips for using text-to-speech narration? Let us know in the comments below.

Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.