What's inside this article:
- Basic information
- Initial setup
- Add audio narration to a text content page
- Check the status
- Check history
- Remove audio narration
- Regenerate audio narration
- Localize website texts
Basic information
User groups: Journalist_2020, Editor_2020, Master Editor_2020
About user groups
This article provides information about the audio narration feature and explains how to add audio narration to a text content page.
The audio narration feature is powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
What is audio narration?
Audio narration lets visitors listen to a story instead of reading it. If audio narration is available for a story, the Listen to this article button appears above the body text.
When a visitor clicks Listen to this article, an AI-generated voice reads the following texts:
- Title
- Introduction (if displayed on the page)
- Body text (excluding text inside embeds, image captions, and 'See also' links)
The audio plays through a sticky player. If the visitor moves to another page, the player follows them and the audio continues to play.
Audio narration brings the following benefits:
- Accessibility: Make your content more accessible for visitors who are traveling or multitasking.
- Engagement: Encourage visitors to spend more time on your site and interact with more pages as they listen.
Initial setup
Audio narration is not enabled on all sites by default. We can enable this feature for individual sites on request, subject to language availability.
Follow these steps:
1) Choose your service provider
We offer two third-party service providers, each with different strengths:
- ElevenLabs: Supports fewer languages, but generally offers more natural-sounding speech.
- Azure Speech: Offers broader language support, though audio quality varies by language.
2) Check language support
- ElevenLabs: To see the list of supported languages, go to this page on the ElevenLabs website:
- Azure Speech: To confirm language support, contact Pangea Customer Care.
3) Preview voice options
- ElevenLabs: Create a free ElevenLabs account to test the available voice options with sample text. To sign in or create a new account on the ElevenLabs website, click this link:
- Azure Speech: To request voice samples, contact Pangea Customer Care.
NOTE: ElevenLabs free accounts limit audio conversion length. To request full article samples in your shortlisted voices, contact Pangea Customer Care.
4) Enable the feature
Contact Pangea Customer Care with:
- Your preferred service provider (ElevenLabs or Azure Speech)
- Your language
- The name of the specific voice you want to use (ElevenLabs only)
Add audio narration to a text content page
You can add audio narration to the following text content pages:
- Article, Blog, Feature, Feature story, News, Transcript
Pangea CMS can generate audio for stories with 500-20,000 characters. If the story is shorter or longer, it is not possible to add audio narration.
You add audio narration from the edit page for the text content in Pangea CMS. The steps below assume that the text content page is ready to publish.
To publish a new text content page with audio narration:
- Go to Editor and tick Audio narration.
- Select Published in the selector. Click Publish or Publish & close.
Pangea CMS starts generating the audio narration. This may take several minutes. When the audio narration is ready, the Listen to this article button appears automatically on the live page.
Listen to the audio narration
To listen to the audio narration, open the live page and click Listen to this article.
The Listen to this article button may not be available immediately after publication. In some cases, Pangea CMS needs several minutes to generate the audio. If the button does not appear within 10 minutes of publishing, open the edit page for the text content and check the status of your audio narration request. For details, see:
Check the status
You can check the status of an audio narration request from the edit page for the text content in Pangea CMS. To check the status, go to Editor > Audio narration.
You normally see the following statuses:
- Processing: Pangea CMS is preparing the audio narration. The audio narration is not yet available on the live page.
- Published: Pangea CMS has prepared the audio narration. The audio narration is available on the live page.
In rare cases, you might see the Failed status. This means Pangea CMS was unable to generate audio narration. Contact Pangea Customer Care for assistance.
What if 'Audio narration' is not ticked?
In this case, audio narration was either not requested or the audio narration was removed from the live page. You can check this on the History dialog for the text content page. For details, see:
Check history
You can check the history of audio narration requests for a particular text content page. Follow these steps:
- Find the item on the Search list.
- Click the History button.
Under Action, the following actions relate to audio narration:
- Request audio narration: Someone ticks Audio narration and publishes the content for the first time, or updates one of the narrated text fields and republishes.
- Remove audio narration: Someone unticks Audio narration (after it was ticked) and publishes the change.
Remove audio narration
Changes to published content need approval before publication. For details, see the following article:
To remove audio narration from a text content page:
- Open the edit page for the text content.
- Go to Editor and untick Audio narration.
- Choose the relevant option:
- Click Approve & publish to self-approve the change.
- Click Request approval to send the change for review.
If you clicked Approve & publish, the audio narration is now removed from the live page.
If you clicked Request approval, the audio narration is removed once a reviewer approves the change.
Due to caching, changes may take up to 5 minutes to appear on the site. For details, see the following article:
Regenerate audio narration
Changes to published content need approval before publication. For details, see the following article:
If you publish changes to one of the narrated text fields after publication, Pangea CMS automatically regenerates the audio narration. This applies to the following text fields:
- Title
- Introduction (if displayed on the page)
- Body text
After the change is published, Pangea CMS starts regenerating the audio narration. This may take several minutes. You can check the status of the audio narration request on the edit page for the text content. For details, see:
Localize website texts
If your website uses audio narration, several website texts need localization.
Add local values on the Site localization page in Pangea CMS. For detailed information about using this page, see the following article:
All key names and default values are provided below:
| Key name | Purpose | Default value |
|---|---|---|
| ArticleNarration.Listen | Button label | Listen to this article |
| ArticleNarration.AIGenerated | Disclaimer text | This audio is automated |
| Responsive.Common.LearnMore | Link text inside disclaimer | Learn more |
Disclaimer and 'Learn more' link
An info (i) button appears next to the Listen to this article button. When clicked, it displays a short disclaimer. The default disclaimer text is This audio is automated.
The disclaimer can also include a Learn more link. This link should open an infopage with information about the AI policy for your site.
The Learn more link does not appear in the disclaimer by default. To add this link to the disclaimer, contact Pangea Customer Care. Include the following in your request:
- The URL for the link.
- The Learn more text in your local language.