Adam Greenwell

ListenUp is a powerful WordPress plugin that adds text-to-speech functionality to your posts and pages. With just a few clicks, you can generate high-quality audio versions of your content using Murf.ai’s advanced AI voices.
<h4>Key Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Easy Audio Generation: Generate audio for any post or page with a simple click</li>
<li>Murf.ai Integration: Uses professional AI voices for natural-sounding audio</li>
<li>Gen2 API Controls: Tune reusable Murf audio with locale, format, response mode, duration, timing metadata, speed, pitch and pauses</li>
<li>No FFmpeg Required: Ideal for hosting environments where FFmpeg is not available or restricted</li>
<li>Smart Caching: Audio files are cached locally to save API credits</li>
<li>Hands-Off Generation: Queue audio automatically when content is published and backfill recent posts on a schedule</li>
<li>Intelligent Chunking: Long content is automatically broken into manageable chunks</li>
<li>Seamless Playback: Multiple audio chunks play continuously without interruption</li>
<li>Leech Protection: Secure audio delivery prevents unauthorized direct file access and hotlinking</li>
<li>Download Control: Restrict downloads to logged-in users or disable downloads entirely</li>
<li>Flexible Placement: Choose where to display the audio player (before/after content)</li>
<li>Shortcode Support: Use [listenup] shortcode to place players anywhere</li>
<li>Accessibility First: WCAG-compliant audio player with keyboard navigation</li>
<li>Mobile Responsive: Works perfectly on all devices</li>
<li>Admin-Friendly: Simple settings page with clear instructions</li>
</ul>
<h4>How It Works</h4>
<ol>
<li>Setup: Enter your Murf.ai API key in the plugin settings</li>
<li>Generate: Use the meta box on any post/page, or enable background generation on publish</li>
<li>Display: Audio players appear automatically or via shortcode</li>
<li>Listen: Visitors can play, pause, and download audio content</li>
</ol>
<h4>Advanced Features</h4>
Content Chunking: For posts that exceed Murf.ai’s API limits, content is automatically broken into smaller chunks. Each chunk generates a separate audio file, but the frontend player seamlessly plays all chunks in sequence without interruption.
Audio Concatenation: When downloading audio content that has been chunked, the plugin automatically concatenates supported stream-friendly formats into a single file, so listeners do not have to manage separate chunks.
Bulk Cloud Migration: Upload existing local-only audio files to configured cloud storage from the Audio Library without regenerating audio. Large backlogs run in small browser-safe batches, track remaining work by post, and upload the canonical playable audio file instead of internal chunk files.
Murf Gen2 Controls: Choose URL or direct base64 responses, set single-file target durations, request word timing metadata, tune speed/pitch/variation, and use <code>[pause 1s]</code> tags in content or pre-roll scripts. ListenUp still caches generated files locally so audio is reused instead of regenerated on every play.
No FFmpeg Dependency: Unlike many audio plugins, ListenUp doesn’t require FFmpeg, making it perfect for shared hosting environments, managed WordPress hosts, or any situation where FFmpeg is not available or restricted.
Leech Protection: Audio files are served through a secure PHP proxy with cache-safe per-file tokens, preventing unauthorized direct access and hotlinking without embedding expiring nonces in cached article HTML. All audio is delivered via WordPress AJAX endpoints with proper HTTP range request support for smooth seeking. This server-agnostic solution works on Apache, Nginx, IIS, and any PHP-capable server without requiring special server configuration.
<h4>Perfect For</h4>
<ul>
<li>Bloggers who want to offer audio versions of their posts</li>
<li>Content creators looking to improve accessibility</li>
<li>Websites targeting mobile users who prefer audio content</li>
<li>Educational sites with long-form content</li>
<li>News sites wanting to offer audio news</li>
</ul>
<h4>Accessibility Features</h4>
<ul>
<li>Full keyboard navigation support</li>
<li>Screen reader compatible</li>
<li>High contrast mode support</li>
<li>Reduced motion support</li>
<li>Proper ARIA labels and descriptions</li>
</ul>
<h3>External Services</h3>
This plugin integrates with external services to provide text-to-speech functionality and optional cloud storage capabilities.
Murf.ai API 
This plugin uses Murf.ai’s text-to-speech API to generate high-quality audio content from your post and page text.
<ul>
<li>Purpose: Generates high-quality audio from text content using professional AI voices</li>
<li>Data Sent: Post/page text content, selected voice ID, locale, voice style preferences, speech generation settings, response mode, optional target duration, optional word timing request, pronunciation dictionary rules (if configured)</li>
<li>When Sent: Only when audio generation is requested manually, queued automatically on publish, processed by the recurring backfill job, or when generating pre-roll audio through the plugin settings</li>
<li>Terms of Service: https://murf.ai/terms-of-service</li>
<li>Privacy Policy: https://murf.ai/privacy-policy</li>
</ul>
Optional Cloud Storage Services 
This plugin optionally supports uploading audio files to cloud storage services (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Cloudflare R2) to reduce bandwidth usage on your web server. This feature is completely optional and disabled by default. No data is sent to these services unless you explicitly configure and enable cloud storage in the plugin settings.
<ul>
<li>Amazon S3: https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/</li>
<li>Google Cloud Storage: https://cloud.google.com/terms/</li>
<li>Cloudflare R2: https://www.cloudflare.com/terms/</li>
</ul>
<h3>Support</h3>
For support, please visit the plugin’s support forum or contact the developer.
<h3>Privacy Policy</h3>
This plugin does not collect or store any personal data. Audio files are cached locally on your server. The plugin only communicates with Murf.ai’s API when audio generation is requested manually, through enabled automation, or when generating pre-roll audio from plugin settings.

ListenUp

Add "read this to me" functionality to your WordPress posts using Murf.ai text-to-speech technology.

Weston Ruter

Add text-to-speech (TTS) to content, with playback controls, read-along highlighting, multi-lingual support, and settings for rate, pitch, and voice.
<ul>
<li>Uses local text-to-speech engine in user’s browser. Directly interfaces with the <code>speechSynthesis</code> browser API. Zero external requests or dependencies.</li>
<li>Words are selected/highlighted as they are being spoken to allow you to read along.</li>
<li>Skips speaking elements that should not be read, including footnote superscripts (the <code>sup</code> element).</li>
<li>Pauses of different length added are between headings versus paragraphs.</li>
<li>Controls remain in view during playback, with each the current text being spoken persistently being scrolled into view. (Requires browser support for <code>position:sticky</code>.)</li>
<li>Back/forward controls allow you to skip to the next paragraph; when not speaking, the next paragraph to read will be selected entirely.</li>
<li>Select text to read from that point; click on text during speech to immediately change position.</li>
<li>Multi-lingual support, allowing embedded text with <code>[lang]</code> attribute to be spoken by the appropriate voice (assuming the user has it installed).</li>
<li>Settings for changing the default voice (for each language), along with settings for the rate of speech and its pitch. (Not supported by all engines.) Changes can be made while speaking.</li>
<li>Hit escape to pause during playback.</li>
<li>Voice preferences are persistently stored in <code>localStorage</code>, with changes synced across windows (of a given site).</li>
<li>Ability to use JS in standalone manner (such as in bookmarklet).</li>
<li>Known to work in the latest desktop versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. (Tested on OSX.) It does not work reliably in mobile/touch browsers on Android or iOS, apparently due both to the (still experimental) <code>speechSynthesis</code> API not being implemented well enough on those systems and/or programmatic range selection does not work the same way as on desktop. For these reasons, the functionality is disabled by default on mobile operating systems.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://westonruter.github.io/spoken-word/test/example.html" rel="nofollow ugc">Try it out</a> on standalone example with some test content.
<h4>Theme Config</h4>
The settings for Spoken Word are presented in an HTML5 <code>dialog</code> element. For browsers that do not yet support this feature, the plugin bundles the <a href="https://github.com/GoogleChrome/dialog-polyfill" rel="nofollow ugc">dialog-polyfill</a>. The polyfill is only included if it is detected the browser does not support <code>dialog</code> natively. The inclusion of the polyfill can be disabled by adding the following to your theme or plugin:
<pre>
add_filter( 'spoken_word_include_dialog_polyfill', '__return_false' );
</pre>
For themes that have a sticky header (such as the nav menu in Twenty Seventeen) you may need to add some additional CSS to ensure that the sticky-positioned playback controls do not get hidden behind the sticky header. For example in Twenty Seventeen, you can add the following to the Custom CSS in the Customizer:
<pre>
@media screen and (min-width: 782px) {
 body:not(.admin-bar) .spoken-word--active {
 top: calc( 0.5em + 70px );
 }
 body.admin-bar .spoken-word--active {
 top: calc( 0.5em + 32px + 70px );
 }
}
</pre>
<h4>Internals</h4>
A bookmarklet can be used to load the Spoken Word functionality into any site, even non-WordPress sites where the plugin is not installed. The key is to use the appropriate <code>contentSelector</code>:
<pre>
( () => {
 const link = document.createElement( 'link' );
 link.rel = 'stylesheet';
 link.href = 'https://unpkg.com/spoken-word/css/style.css';
 document.head.appendChild( link );

 const script = document.createElement( 'script' );
 script.src = 'https://unpkg.com/spoken-word/dist/spoken-word.js';
 script.addEventListener( 'load', () => {
 spokenWord.initialize( {
 contentSelector: [ /* 👈 Amend as desired. */
 '.hentry',
 '.entry-content',
 '.h-entry',
 '.e-content',
 '[itemprop="articleBody"]',
 ].join( ', ' )
 } );
 } );
 document.head.appendChild( script );
} )();
</pre>
The <code>spokenWord.initialize()</code> function takes an object as its argument which can have the following properties:
<pre>
 * @param {string} contentSelector - CSS Selector to find the elements for speaking.
 * @param {Element} rootElement - Root element within which to look for content.
 * @param {Object} chunkifyOptions - Options passed into chunkify.
 * @param {boolean} useDashicons - Whether to use Dashicons.
 * @param {Object} defaultUtteranceOptions - Default utterance options when none are supplied from localStorage.
</pre>
The dialog and the controls are rendered using <a href="https://preactjs.com/" rel="nofollow ugc">Preact</a>. For a list of all the modules used by this plugin, see the <a href="https://github.com/westonruter/spoken-word/blob/master/package.json" rel="nofollow ugc">package.json</a>.
This plugin is <a href="https://github.com/westonruter/spoken-word" rel="nofollow ugc">developed on GitHub</a> where the source can be viewed. Please <a href="https://github.com/westonruter/spoken-word/issues" rel="nofollow ugc">report issues</a> there. Pull requests welcome. The <code>spoken-word</code> package is also <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/spoken-word" rel="nofollow ugc">published on npm</a>.

Spoken Word

Add text-to-speech (TTS) to content, with playback controls, read-along highlighting, multi-lingual support, and settings for rate, pitch, and voice.

ListenUp vs Spoken Word