Forum Discussion
Alternative Text-to-Speech (TTS) Solutions for eLearning
Hello everyone,
This is a long post about alternative Text-to-Speech solutions. When Articulate introduced the "Converting Text to Speech" feature, I thought it was a great tool. However, after us...
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 enhanced feature we’ve included:
Unlock new possibilities for text-to-speech audio. Use speech synthesis markup language (SSML) to adjust the speaking rate, modify pronunciation, emphasize words, add pauses, and more.
To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here!
Hey Dan,
I have a question.
For those who have used AI text to speech, what differences have you noticed in terms of naturalness and ease of integration with eLearning content? Also, considering the anchor text 'AI text to speech,' are there specific AI-driven TTS tools that stood out for you in enhancing the overall quality of narration in your eLearning projects?
Hi Khushi,
Regarding the AI text-to-speech site, you referenced and many others like it, they are basically packaging the AI text-to-speech technologies provided by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or other vendor into a commercial product. Personally, I don’t see any reason to pay for the services these sites provide when Articulate provides the text-to-speech functionality for free.
Free is good, but there are limitations when using Amazon Polly via the Articulate interface. I have experimented and used many other options to handle text-to-speech and have gotten much better results from the stock/neural Amazon Polly. One of my favorites and go to service is HEROVOICE TTS because it supports multiple AI text-to-speech providers such as Amazon, MS, Google, and Eleven Labs. The app allows me to pick the AI text-to-speech engine I have an account with and want to use. Since my work pays for my MS account, I’ve used their AI text-to-speech engine quite a bit in the past. If you’re like me and must support an organization that has tons of acronyms, being able to use SSML is a godsend. However, with my most recent projects, I used the Eleven Labs engine (also supported by HEROVOICE TTS), which I find to have many AI voices that are excellent and natural. Although Eleven Labs currently does not support SSML, I found that their AI engine can recognize when a word should be pronounced as individual letters instead of a word. For example, when I use the acronym DOE, Eleven Labs knows to pronounce this as D-O-E instead of doe (as in “doe, a deer, a female deer”).
The HeroVoice TTS app has built-in functions for novice and advanced users. The fact that HEROVOICE TTS was developed by an e-learning developer to address the limitations of Articulate Storyline is like having icing and a cherry with your dessert. The developer is actively engaged and is quick to add new features to the suite of HERO apps. If you want to take the time to check out HEROVOICE TTS, your time will be rewarded since you’ll learn about other “HERO” related apps that I have found useful for my eLearning development work. If you’re interested and want to take your AI voice generation to the Thor level, check out HEROVOICE TTS app and download it from their MS Store or check out their YouTube channel.
Good luck with your projects,
dan
