New Text to Speech Feature in Articulate Storyline 360

Nov 14, 2017

Chris Dickson
By Chris Dickson

I am very excited at this new feature. It seems to use the Amazon Polly engine to do it's conversion. I would like to know if there is a way to edit the text to speech to slow it down, add emphasis, and customize it like you can do in Polly with SSML tags. The speech is great it is just a little quick for what I will need it for in my course development. 

Pinned Reply
Eric Santos
4 months ago12/13/23 at 3:32 pm (UTC)

Hi, everyone!

I have some great news to share. We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 83, we've included important fixes and new features!

One of the new features we've included:

Launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer to take advantage of this update, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.

Please let me know if you need additional help!

28 Replies
Veronica Budnikas
over 6 years ago11/15/17 at 5:57 am (UTC)

This is a great question Chris! I am not sure, but there doesn't seem to be at the moment.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was coming next though. When they released the CC features, the ability to import CC files was released first, and the CC editor came soon after.

You could also request a feature here: https://articulate.com/support/contact/feature-request 

Chris Dickson
over 6 years ago11/15/17 at 9:56 pm (UTC)

Thank you Veronica. I did submit a feature request.  I will continue to use Polly until there is a way to change it or the speed of the speech doesn't detract from my courses. 

I think I might have found a work around to get TTS captions and use my Polly audio files. Will post more later. 

Crystal Horn
over 6 years ago11/21/17 at 5:43 pm (UTC)

Hello SibaPrasad!  Check out this tutorial on using the text to speech feature.  You can make changes to the text or to the voice, presently. 

It sounds like it would be a popular feature to have more robust editing capabilities of the narration that's generated; let us know what works for you in a feature request!

nicola poletti
almost 6 years ago06/19/18 at 1:59 pm (UTC)

Just to make sure I got everything right: there is no way to edit text-to-speech in order to insert pauses inside paragraphs or phrases, am I right?

I tried filling the text with dots or commas but nothing changes, and working with Silences is very time consuming, since there is no way to rapidly preview a slide during audio editing.

That's a pity: the tool could be useful but as it is, IMHO, it seems quite uncomplete and difficult to use properly.

Alyssa Gomez
almost 6 years ago06/20/18 at 3:51 pm (UTC)

Hi Nicola! 

I typically recommend adding extra punctuation within the text, or manually adding silence to the narration in the Audio Editor. It sounds like you've already tried those options and you're looking for something more user-friendly. We're tracking these requests, and we'll definitely let you know if more editing tools are added to the text-to-speech feature in the future!

Chris Dickson
almost 6 years ago06/27/18 at 12:32 pm (UTC)

Adding silence and manipulating the audio sounds more unnatural than using the built in SSML tags that work with Polly. Yes this may not sound as user friendly as some audio editor, but the tags are easy to use once you get hang of them and a system that allowed you to drop in specific tags would make manipulating the speech must quicker and give you a better control of how the speech sounds. This is similar to allowing users that can write JavaScript to use it and there should be a way to mark up the speech for those that can use tags. 

nicola poletti
almost 6 years ago06/27/18 at 3:12 pm (UTC)

Hi Alyssa,

and first of all thank you for your kind and quick reply. As you mentioned, I already tried adding extra punctuation but it just didn't work: even if I insert lots of dots or commas, pauses last the same. Should I use something else?

In ended I worked with silences in Audio editing and I managed to get the text how I wanted it, but it really takes a lot more time than working with tags or similar.

I hope you'll add a specific tool in the future since it doesn't seem that difficult to me!

Goetz Schucht
almost 6 years ago07/17/18 at 2:29 pm (UTC)

Hi all.
A little bit of 'Sherlock-Holming' brought me here since I was confident not to be the only one with this feature request.

So just for the record, my feature request has number: 01399278 [ref:_00D30Txo._500f31E32Nt:ref] from June, 7th.

I'd be pretty happy to hear from Articulate that things are proceeding in the direction of integrating similar features as in the above mentioned Amazon Polly.
Or at least the variation of talking speed which I think is the most needed one.

Thor Melicher
almost 4 years ago04/23/20 at 1:17 pm (UTC)

I see lots of different requests going on here, but I might have a solution for you, but it requires going to the source that Storyline uses, Amazon Polly.  To make things a bit simpler, I’ve created an application that addresses many of the things here:

  • Adjust the overall speed of your files with one setting
  • Adjust the overall pause duration for commas
  • Add your own SSML to get more finer nuanced, naturally sounding results and as necessary, correct the pronunciation of words
  • Neural voices
  • Batch process your files 
  • Preview a file before you batch process your files

Here’s what you do:

  1. Get an Amazon Polly account (yes, there is some cost involved but doesn’t seem that prohibitive) (https://aws.amazon.com/polly/)
  2. Save your scripts as separate files (MS-Word or Text)
  3. Download HeroVoice TTS from the Microsoft Windows Store (Fully functioning 15-day free trial)
  4. Encode your files with HeroVoice TTS – apply a global setting for speed and even comma duration so your files are consistent.
  5. Select the voice you want – these are the same as you’ll find in Storyline today including Neural voices (which aren’t currently available in Storyline)
  6. Load each audio file into Storyline
Katie Riggio
almost 4 years ago07/01/20 at 2:28 pm (UTC)

Hello Chris,

Thanks for reaching out, and good question!

This is an internal report, where we're tracking requests for more editing capabilities in text-to-speech. I'll surface your thoughts and let you know if this gets added to a future update!

Learn More 💡

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