Adding Text-to-Speech Audio to Guide Steps

Overview

Walnut’s Text to Speech feature makes it easy to turn guide text into audio without uploading a separate recording.

This is a powerful way to add narration to your demos, create more passive, video-like experiences, and make guided flows feel more polished and dynamic.

Text to Speech can be added to individual guides, updated when your copy changes, and paired with autoplay settings so narration plays automatically as viewers move through the experience.

Text to Speech is especially useful when you want demos to feel more guided, more accessible, and more presentation-ready without needing to record voiceover files manually.

In This Guide:

This guide walks through how to add, autoplay, update, and remove Text to Speech audio in Walnut guides.


Before You Start

Before using Text to Speech, keep the following in mind:

  • Text to Speech uses AI. The first time you use the feature, you will need to accept the AI terms and conditions. Once accepted, this prompt will not appear again.
  • There is no limit to the number of audio recordings you can generate across your demo.
  • Autoplay is optional. If you want narration to play automatically, enable autoplay for the relevant screens and or guides.
  • Audio does not update automatically when guide text changes. If you edit the guide copy later, you will need to regenerate the recording.
  • If guide text is deleted, the recording remains. Audio files are not removed automatically when text is changed or removed.

Best practice: Finalize your guide text before generating narration whenever possible. This helps avoid unnecessary regeneration and keeps your audio aligned with your story.


Add Audio to Guides

Text to Speech is added at the guide level, which means you can choose exactly which guide steps should include narration.

Begin by creating your guides and adding the text you want Walnut to narrate. Then generate the recording directly from the guide editor.

  1. Open the template in Edit mode.
  2. From the right-hand toolbar, click the Guides icon to open the Guides pane.
  3. Select the guide you want to narrate, then click the Text to Speech icon. 

    Text to Speech icon in Walnut guide editor
  4. If this is your first time using the feature, review the AI terms and click Accept

    AI terms prompt for Text to Speech in Walnut
  5. Click the Text to Speech icon again to open the audio popup. 

    Text to Speech voice generation popup in Walnut
  6. Choose the voice you want to use, then click Generate.
  7. Once generated, the audio player appears at the bottom of the guide. 

    Generated audio player inside a Walnut guide

You can also switch narrators before generating if you want a different voice for the guide.

Voice selection dropdown for Walnut Text to Speech

Why teams use this:
Text to Speech helps demos feel more guided and more immersive, especially when paired with autoplay for self-serve or presentation-style experiences.

Autoplay Audio

By default, viewers can click the audio player manually. If you want the experience to feel more like a narrated walkthrough, you can enable autoplay.

Autoplay can be configured at different levels depending on how much of the experience you want to automate:

  • All screens
  • All guides
  • Selected screens
  • Selected guides

This gives you flexibility to create anything from a lightly narrated demo to a more passive, video-like experience.

For step-by-step autoplay setup, see Autoplay Demos.


Update Audio After Text Changes

If you update the text inside a guide, the audio does not refresh automatically.

To keep the narration aligned with the updated guide content, you will need to delete the old recording and generate a new one.

To update audio after changing guide text:

  1. Select the guide where the text has changed.
  2. In the audio player area, click the Bin icon to delete the current recording.
  3. Click the Text to Speech icon again, then click Generate to create a new recording.
  4. Play the new recording to confirm it matches the updated text.

Good to know: If you add more text and generate a new recording, the narration will include the full current guide text, not just the newly added portion.

Important: If you generated a recording and then deleted the original guide text, the recording will still remain until you remove it manually.


Remove Audio

If you no longer want narration on a guide, you can remove it at any time.

Select the guide, then hover over the audio player and click the Bin icon to delete the recording.

Delete audio from a guide in Walnut


Summary

Text to Speech helps you add fast, flexible narration to Walnut guides without recording and uploading voiceover files manually.

It works especially well for guided demos, more passive walkthroughs, and any experience where you want to add a stronger sense of flow and explanation.

Once your guide text is in place, you can generate narration in just a few clicks, autoplay it when needed, and update it whenever your story changes.

Final Takeaway:
Text to Speech is one of the easiest ways to make a Walnut demo feel more polished, more guided, and more video-like, while still keeping the experience interactive.
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