Audio playback and subtitle cues

Upload audio, align subtitles, and navigate the reader using timed cues when available.

Audio sources

Stories can include audio from several sources:

  • Uploaded narration — you can upload audio files alongside a story import. Supported formats depend on the instance configuration.
  • YouTube imports — when you import a YouTube video, the audio track is linked automatically if captions are available. See YouTube imports.
  • Text-to-speech — synthesized speech is available for some languages.

Subtitle cues

Subtitle files (SRT, VTT, or similar) associate text segments with audio timestamps. When a story has aligned cue data, you can:

  • Use the sentence playback controls to jump audio to that position
  • Follow along as the reader highlights the current sentence during playback
  • Let playback auto-advance to the next sentence at each cue boundary

If an uploaded or YouTube story has no subtitle cues, its audio is not connected to the sentences on the page. You can still play and pause the audio, but it will not automatically follow the sentence you are reading. If the story has readable text, you may still be able to use text-to-speech one sentence at a time.

Audio in page vs sentence mode

In sentence mode, audio follows the focused sentence. In page mode, audio continues independently while you move between pages. You can switch modes without losing the audio position.