With the text-to-speech feature, you can convert written text to spoken audio and increase the accessibility of your course.
Having written text spoken aloud can be helpful to learners who have visual or cognitive accessibility needs but can still navigate without needing a screen reader. It can also be useful for users whose first language differs from the language the elearning was created in or even for learners who prefer learning by listening to audio rather than reading.
There are several voice options available to use, in numerous different languages. The language of the text-to-speech voices will be based on the language that your browser is set to. For example, if your browser language is set to French, you will be offered French-speaking voices.
Text-to-speech audio is exempt from a course's progress count. Listening to the audio is optional and does not contribute towards the learner's progress percentage. This means that those who do not need to use it do not need to listen to it to fully complete the course. If you'd prefer to add audio that contributes towards a user's progress, see Adding audio to your course.
You can create text-to-speech audio files directly in your Project, using the text from the component it is added to. Text-to-speech audio can also be created in the Asset Library, ready to be used at a later time.
| Note: While Text-to-speech can be helpful for accessibility, it is not a replacement for screen readers which offer navigational capabilities alongside reading out written text. You should consider the accessibility needs of users who require a screen reader in addition users who would benefit from text-to-speech. |
Creating text-to-speech audio
Directly in your Project
1. Go to your Project and select the component you'd like to create text-to-speech audio
2. Select the text-to-speech icon from the right-hand toolbar ()
3. Choose a voice to read out your text-to-speech audio from the Select a voice drop-down menu
4. If there is already text in the component, the text will be used to generate a new text-to-speech audio file. You can edit this before it is created by replacing the text in the box:
5. When you're happy with the text, select Generate
6. The audio will be added to a player at the bottom of the component
From the Asset Library
1. Go to the Asset Library
2. Select Add assets
3. Choose Generate Text-to-Speech:
4. Choose a voice from the Select a voice drop-down menu
5. Type the text you'd like to be spoken into the text field
6. Select Generate
| Note: You can add text up to 3000 characters. |
Adding existing text-to-speech audio from your Asset Library
1. Go to your Project and find the component you'd like to create text-to-speech audio for
2. Select the text-to-speech icon
3. Select Choose from your library:
4. Find the audio file you'd like to use
5. Select Choose
6. The audio will be added to a player at the bottom of the component