To assist those with a vision impairment, you can use the text to speech feature in your TikTok videos. People can hear the text you add once at the beginning of the video, and you can select different voice options.
If you want to give the feature a try, here’s how to use text to speech on TikTok using your mobile phone or tablet.
Add Text to Speech on TikTok
Adding text to speech to your video is easy to do in the TikTok app on Android, iPhone, and iPad.
- Capture your video as you usually would.
- Before tapping Next at the bottom, tap Text. This is at the bottom on mobile phones and the top right on tablets.
- Type your text into the text box.
- Immediately tap the Text to Speech icon to the left of the font styles and select Done at the top. If you’ve already tapped Done to move on, tap the text box and choose Text to Speech in the pop-up menu.
- To change the voice, tap the text box and choose Change Voice in the pop-up menu.
- Select the text to speech voice you want to use at the bottom of the screen and tap Done.
- Tap Next to move on to the next step and post your video or save it as a draft.
You can add text to speech to a video draft you’ve saved the same way.
Set a Duration to Show the Text Box
The text to speech for your video is spoken at the start of your clip. However, the text box remains. Optionally, you can set the duration for the amount of time the text box displays.
- Tap the text box and pick Set Duration in the pop-up menu.
- Use the slider at the bottom to adjust how long the text displays. Most likely, you’ll drag from right to left to shorten the time after the narration plays.
- Optionally, tap the play button to see a preview and adjust the duration if needed.
- Tap the checkmark to apply the change.
Edit the Text
To edit the text you’ve entered, tap the text box and select Edit in the pop-up menu. Make your changes or enter new text and select Done. The spoken text updates automatically.
Remove Text to Speech on TikTok
If you apply the text to speech to your video as described above and change your mind, you can remove it before posting your video.
Do one of the following to turn off text to speech:
- Select the text box, choose Edit, and tap the Text to Speech icon to remove the checkmark from it.
- Tap the text box and select Change Voice. Then pick None for the voice.
Adding accessibility features like text to speech on TikTok lets more people enjoy your videos. Hopefully, other social media apps with videos will follow suit!