ARTICULATE STORYLINE 360: Text-to-Speech to Final Voiceover

While working on a recent eLearning project in Articulate Storyline 360, there was a delay in getting the voiceover audio back from our voiceover professional. The dealy was particularly problematic because several slides had image builds that had to be synchronized with the voiceover audio. While these kinds of delays are common, they don't need to derail the entire development process.   To keep the project moving forward, I copied the voiceover script into the Notes window on each Storyline slide.

Next, I opened Storyline's Text-to-Speech window by going to the Insert tab on the Ribbon and, from the Media group, choosing Audio > Text-to-Speech.

From within the Insert Text-to-Speech window, I clicked the Copy From Slide Notes button. The voiceover script text that I had previously pasted into the Notes window was added to the Text-to-Speech window.

From the drop-down menu at the left, I selected English (US); and from the next drop-down menu I chose a voice. I was then able to listen to a sample of the voice by clicking the icon to the left of Preview Voice.

Once I'd settled on a voice that I liked, I clicked the Insert button to add the audio to the slide. (Inserted slide audio appears as an audio icon at the left of the slide.)   To preview the finished Text-to-Speech audio, I right-clicked the audio icon and chose Preview Audio.

Thanks to the Text-to-Speech audio, I had a reasonable placeholder for my finished audio and I was able to move forward with adding and synchronizing the animations.   When the audio finally arrived from my voiceover talent, all I needed to do was replace the Text-to-Speech audio with the "real" audio. On the Timeline, I right-clicked the Text-to-Speech audio file and chose Replace Audio > Audio from File.

Using Text-to-Speech as a placeholder for finished voiceover audio wasn't a perfect process. Because my voiceover person spoke a little slower than the voice I selected in the Text-to-Speech window, I did have to go back and tweak the timing for some of the animations. However, this was a small price to pay to keep the project on track and on budget.

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Kevin Siegel is the founder and president of IconLogic, Inc. He has written hundreds of step-by-step computer training books on applications such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, Adobe RoboHelp, Adobe Presenter, and TechSmith Camtasia. Kevin spent five years in the U.S. Coast Guard as an award-winning photojournalist and has three decades’ experience as a trainer, publisher, technical writer, and eLearning developer. Kevin is a Certified Master Trainer (CMT), Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+), Certified Online Professional Trainer (COTP), and a frequent speaker at trade shows and conventions.

Comments

[Naomi Madelin]

As a voice artist, it's really great to hear that you were using the Text-to-Speech only while waiting for the genuine human voice recording to be ready! While the AI voices may have originated from a human mouth, I don't think we'll ever get the same spirit, warmth and, well, humanity, from an AI voice that you get from a person who has a sense of the script as a whole, and who is speaking complete phrases. But what a useful tool nonetheless!