Storyline 360: SSML Support

Enrich the way your learners experience text-to-speech audio. As of December 2023, Storyline 360 supports speech synthesis markup language (SSML). Now you can adjust the speaking rate, modify pronunciation, add pauses, and more to boost clarity and interest. Read on for details.

• Use SSML
• View Supported SSML Tags
• Test a Sample Narration With SSML Tags
• Understand Compatibility
• Share Your Feedback

Use SSML

To enable SSML support, you must enclose your text-to-speech narration with the start tag <speak> and the end tag </speak>, as shown below. (Click the image to enlarge it.)

Once SSML support is enabled, the Insert Text-to-Speech window includes syntax highlighting so you can easily add tags and identify SSML-enhanced text. You can convert up to 3,000 characters for text and 3,000 for SSML tags at a time.

Learn more about using SSML.

View Supported SSML Tags

Storyline 360 supports all available SSML tags for neural and standard voices. SSML tags work for most standard voices, whereas neural voices have fewer tag options. For example, neural voices don't support emphasizing words. The table below lists all available SSML tags and their supported voice(s). For a complete list of supported tags, attributes, and examples, refer to the Amazon documentation.

Action	SSML Tag	Standard Voices	Neural Voices
Add a Pause	<break>	Supported	Supported
Specify Another Language for Specific Words	<lang>	Supported	Supported
Place a Custom Tag in Your Text	<mark name="tag_name"/>	Supported	Supported
Add a Pause Between Paragraphs	<p>	Supported	Supported
Use Phonetic Pronunciation	<phoneme>	Supported	Supported
Add a Pause Between Sentences	<s>	Supported	Supported
Identify SSML-Enhanced Text	<speak>	Supported	Supported
Pronounce Acronyms and Abbreviations	<sub>	Supported	Supported
Improve Pronunciation by Specifying Parts of Speech	<w>	Supported	Supported
Add Dynamic Range Compression	<amazon:effect name="drc">	Supported	Supported
Control Volume, Speaking Rate, and Pitch	<prosody>	Supported	Only the volume and speaking tags are supported
Control How Special Types of Words Are Spoken	<say-as>	Supported	Supported, except for the characters or spell-out attribute
Newscaster speaking style	<amazon:domain name="news">	Unsupported	Only the Matthew (en-US), Joanna (en-US), Lupe (es-US), and Amy (en-GB) voices are supported
Set a Maximum Duration for Synthesized Speech	<prosody amazon:max-duration>	Supported	Unsupported
Emphasize words	<emphasis>	Supported	Unsupported
Add the Sound of Breathing	<amazon:auto-breaths>	Supported	Unsupported
Speak Softly	<amazon:effect phonation="soft">	Supported	Unsupported
Control Timbre	<amazon:effect vocal-tract-length>	Supported	Unsupported
Whisper	<amazon: effect name="whispered">	Supported	Unsupported

Tip: Creating content in various languages? Choose the voice, then use English-language SSML tags—even if your content is in a language other than English.

How to Fix Invalid SSML Tags

When you add SSML tags to your text-to-speech narration, you might see this error message: Storyline 360 can't convert this text to speech. Verify the SSML tags are correct and supported for the selected voice.

Here are a few troubleshooting tips:

• Make sure your text-to-speech narration has opening and closing speak tags: <speak></speak> and that each SSML tag has the appropriate opening and closing tags where applicable: <emphasis></emphasis>,<p></p>.
• Ensure the SSML tags are supported for the selected voice.
• Check that the syntax highlighting only applies to the SSML tags, not the script text.

Test a Sample Narration With SSML Tags

Want to see SSML support in action? Check out this example to hear the difference between narration with and without SSML tags.

Understand Compatibility

SSML support is exclusive to Storyline 360 as of December 2023. When you open, edit, and publish projects with text-to-speech narration and SSML tags in Storyline 3 and earlier versions of Storyline 360, the narration will work as expected. However, you can't create new text-to-speech narration or change the language, voice, script, or SSML tags for existing narration in Storyline 3.

Note that updating existing narration with new SSML tags in earlier versions of Storyline 360 will break SSML support.

Learn more about compatibility.

Share Your Feedback

What excites you most about SSML support? How will you use this feature to help learners? We'd love your feedback!