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.

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.
• Generate Text to Speech before adding translations. Walnut translates the narration audio at the same time it generates a text translation, but only if a Text to Speech recording already exists for the guide. Add the audio first, then add your languages, so each translation gets a narrated version automatically.
• Text to Speech supports a specific list of languages. Translated narration is available for the languages listed in Text to Speech with Translated Guides below. If your translation uses a language outside that list, Walnut will still translate the guide text but will not generate audio for it.

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. 
   
   
4. If this is your first time using the feature, review the AI terms and click Accept. 
   
   
5. Click the Text to Speech icon again to open the audio popup. 
   
   
6. Choose the voice you want to use, then click Generate.
7. Once generated, the audio player appears at the bottom of the guide. 
   
   

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

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.

Text to Speech with Translated Guides

Walnut can narrate every translated version of a guide, so viewers hear the audio in the same language they are reading. For this to work, Text to Speech needs to be generated before you add a translation. When the audio is in place, Walnut translates both the guide text and the narration at the same time you add a language.

How it works:

1. Generate Text to Speech for your guide in the default language. See Add Audio to Guides above.
2. Once the audio is generated, add a language to the guide. See Guide Translations for the full workflow.
3. Walnut automatically translates both the guide text and the narration for the new language.
4. To hear the translated narration, click the preview button next to the language.

Good to know:

• You do not need to regenerate audio per language once the order is right. Adding a translation handles both text and audio in one step.
• If you update the guide text in the default language, regenerate the recording so the translated audio stays aligned with the latest copy.

Supported languages for translated narration:

Translated Text to Speech is currently available in the following languages. Languages outside this list can still be added as text translations, but they will not include narrated audio. 

• English (USA, UK, Australia, Canada)
• French (France, Canada)
• Portuguese (Brazil, Portugal)
• Spanish (Spain, Mexico)
• Arabic (Saudi Arabia, UAE)
• Japanese, Chinese, German, Hindi, Korean, Italian, Indonesian, Dutch, Turkish, Filipino, Polish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Czech, Greek, Finnish, Croatian, Malay, Slovak, Danish, Tamil, Ukrainian, Russian, Hungarian, Norwegian, Vietnamese

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.

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.