Posted on by IconLogic

Adobe Captivate: Slow Down Your Speech Agent

by Kevin Siegel Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedIn View our videos on YouTube

Using Captivate's Text to Speech feature allows you to quickly convert written text to voiceover audio. It's an awesome feature. However, we recently had a client who felt that Paul (that was the Speech Agent we used for the project) spoke too fast. The client wanted to know if we cloud slow him down a bit.

While you might think that controlling the cadence used by the Speech Agent was beyond your control, it's actually really easy. Prior to converting a slide note to speech, just add a bit of code (known as Voice Text Markup Language or VTML) to the text. 

 
For example, if you want a Speech Agent to say I am an awesome person, all that you would normally have to do is write the text in the Notes window, click the TTS check box and then click Text to Speech.
 
 
 
 
In the Speech Management dialog box, select a Speech Agent and then click Generate Audio.
 
 
 
If you feel like the resulting voiceover audio is too fast or too slow, you can change the speed. In the slide Note, add the following code in front of the text: <vtml_speed value="50">. At the end of the text, type </vtml_speed>.
 
 
Click the Text to Speech button and regenerate the audio (the existing audio will be replaced with the new audio file). You'll find that the agent's speed has been cut in half (thanks to the 50 you added as part of the VTML code). You can experiment with the speed values until you find a speed that works best for you and/or your client.
 
If you'd like to learn more about VTML or see more tags, review the users guide for the VTML Tag Set by clicking here.
 

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If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you. 

6 Replies to “Adobe Captivate: Slow Down Your Speech Agent”

  4. Hi Kevin,
    I am generating TTS from Slide Notes in Captivate 8, however I am having some speed and pronunciation issues. I would love to use VTML however, I need to also use Closed Captioning. Whenever I change the slide notes text, this is of course what appears as my CC. Is there any way to accomplish adjusting the TTS in Slide Notes without affecting the CC?
    Thanks.

    Reply

  5. Hi Kevin,
    I am generating TTS from Slide Notes in Captivate 8, however I am having some speed and pronunciation issues. I would love to use VTML however, I need to also use Closed Captioning. Whenever I change the slide notes text, this is of course what appears as my CC. Is there any way to accomplish adjusting the TTS in Slide Notes without affecting the CC?
    Thanks.

    Reply

  6. Hi Kevin,
    I am generating TTS from Slide Notes in Captivate 8, however I am having some speed and pronunciation issues. I would love to use VTML however, I need to also use Closed Captioning. Whenever I change the slide notes text, this is of course what appears as my CC. Is there any way to accomplish adjusting the TTS in Slide Notes without affecting the CC?
    Thanks.

    Reply

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