The Voicer WordPress Plugin converts text into human-like speech in more than 190 voices across 30+ languages and variants. It applies groundbreaking research in speech synthesis (WaveNet) and Google’s robust neural networks to deliver high-fidelity audio.
Note
This article was created for the plugin version 2.0 and higher. If you are using the first generation Voicer plugin, check out prevous Voicer Settings artice.
Installing of the Voicer WordPress plugin
To install the plugin, read the article Installing WordPress Plugin. Installing the plugin takes only a few seconds.
To open the plugin settings slick Settings below plugin name on the plugins page
or in the WordPress Sidebar menu go to Voicer
In the plugin settings, there are several tabs responsible for various groups of plugin settings.
General settings
Multilingual support
The option allows you to support the multilingual feature. The Site locale will be used to generate speech. For all languages, except for the one selected in the plugin settings, the Standard-A voice will be used.
API Key File
When you first run the plugin, you need to connect the Key File. How to get the Key File you can find out from the article About Key File for the Voicer WordPress Plugin
Now used
Shows which voice is selected now, and also allows you to listen to the voice sample chosen with default settings.
You can also listen to the Supported Google Voices and Languages in the Google Cloud Documentation.
Language
Using the filter, you can choose from the table the voices you need. After selecting a language, you can filter the table by voice type and gender.
To select and activate a voice, click on the row in the table. The selected voice will be highlighted in blue.
Audio Profile
You can optimize the synthetic speech produced by Cloud Text-to-Speech API for playback on different types of hardware. For example, if your app runs primarily on smaller, ‘wearable’ types of devices, you can create a synthetic speech from Cloud Text-to-Speech API that is optimized specifically for smaller speakers.
Speaking Rate/Speed
This setting changes the voice playback speed. The smaller the number, the slower the synthesized voice will speak, and the more the amount will be, the faster will be the speech. The normal speed is 1. You can select any value in the range from 0.25 to 4. The higher the number, the faster the speech.
Pitch
Speaking pitch, in the range [-20.0, 20.0]. 20 means an increase of 20 semitones from the original pitch. -20 means a decrease of 20 semitones from the original pitch. The default value is 0
Behaviour
Voicing selected
The toggle enables the voice feature for selected text parts. As soon as the text is selected, the play button appears.
Use everywhere
The option is available for the “Voicing selected” function. The mode allows you to voice only certain blocks on the page using a specific class/shortcode. When the setting is switched off, the Text-to-Speech feature is disabled throughout the site, except for blocks with class or shortcode voicer-voice-voicename. Read more about how to apply this.
Voicing hover
The toggle enables the voicing of a certain text part when hovering over the listed HTML items. List CSS selectors whose contents should be voiced on hover. Use a comma to separate selectors.
For example, below is an example of inputted selectors to voice all site links and buttons on hover.
Design Settings
Note
Please choose contrasting background / icon color combinations.
Border radius
Specify the border radius for the play button.
Background Color
With this setting, you can select the background color of the player tooltip.
Icon Color
This setting is used to select the color of the icon.
Play icon
Select the icon for the play button using the Icon library or upload your own image in SVG format.
Stop icon
Select the icon for the stop button using the Icon library or upload your own image in SVG format.
Icon size
Specify the icon size using the slider. Available values are from 1 to 50 pixels.
Icon margin
Specify the icon margin on the play button using the slider. Available values are from 1 to 50 pixels.
Shortcodes
Mute shortcode
The toggle to enable/disable a mute shortcode [voicer-mute] for muting some parts of the text. Read more
Break shortcode
The toggle to enable/disable the [voicer-break] shortcode to add a pause to voiced text. Read more
Voice shortcode
The toggle to enable/disable the [voicer-voice] shortcode to voicing fragments of text in another language. Read more
Voice off shortcode
The toggle to enable/disable the [voicer-off] shortcode to disable Voicer. Read more
Highlight shortcode
The toggle to enable/disable the [voicer-highlight] shortcode that displays the play button without highlighting the text.
You can specify a voice for the highlighted text, an example below
[voicer-highlight voice="en-US-Wavenet-J"]Text with a specific voice[/voicer-highlight]
The shortcode supports nested shortcodes, an example below
[voicer-highlight][voicer-voice voice="en-US-Wavenet-J"]Nested shortcode[/voicer-voice][/voicer-highlight]
The voice-highlight can be used as a class of an element. The example below of how to permanently display the play button to voice the selected text in a specific language.
<p class="voicer-highlight voicer-voice-en-GB-Wavenet-A">Text with a specific voice</p>
When the setting is enabled the Loading Delay option is available. It allows specifying the Loading Delay of the button.
Tooltip position
The option allows selecting the play button display via the Tooltip position:Top Left, Top Center, Top Right, Left Top, Left Center, Left Bottom, Right Top, Right Center, Right Bottom, Bottom Left, Bottom Center, Bottom Right.
Save changes
Do not forget to click Save Changes after changing plugin settings. After clicking this button, the settings will be saved and applied to all pages of the website.
SSML
Starting with version 2.0, new features of SSML(Speech Synthesis Markup Language) were added to the plugin. Find out more about SSML features in Voicer WordPress plugin.
Additional customization
Use CSS сclass mdp-voicer-selection to fine-tune the tooltip styling, resize the icon, add a frame, and more.
Difference between Speaker and Voicer plugins
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