How to use

Type a script. Make it sound intentional.

VoiceQuill turns text into narration on your Mac. The basics take a minute. The little marks below are what make a read land — a beat here, a lift there, a name said right.

The basics

Four steps to your first voiceover

No setup, no account. Everything runs on your Mac.

01

Type or paste

Drop your script into the editor. Any length.

02

Pick a voice

Choose from the voice list and preview it.

03

Shape it

Tune pitch, warmth and tone — and add the inline marks below.

04

Generate & export

Hit generate, then export as WAV or M4A.

What you can make

Ideas to steal

Real examples with sample scripts — paste one in, pick the voice, and you’ve got a clip. Coral marks are the inline controls explained further down.

Faceless tutorials

Narrate a screen recording

Teach something without ever being on camera. Clear, steady, repeatable.

Here’s the fastest way to clean up a messy spreadsheet. *Select the column*, right-click, and hit *Format*. [pause] That’s it.
Try it with Michael or Adam — clear and instructional.
Short fiction · BookTok

Give a story a narrator

Atmospheric reads for a reel. Let the silence do the work.

The house remembered everyone who had ever left it. [pause:long] Tonight it was waiting for one more.
Try it with George (deep) or Nova (warm).
Meditation · Sleep

Calm, slow, spacious

Long pauses turn a script into something you can breathe to.

Let your shoulders drop. [pause:long] Breathe in [pause:long] and slowly let it go.
Try it with Heart or Emma — soft and unhurried.
Product · Launch

Voice a demo or promo

Confident brand narration for a landing page or launch video.

Meet the app that never sends your work to the cloud. *Fast.* *Private.* *Yours.*
Try it with Adam or Jessica — assured and crisp.
Language · Vocab

Nail tricky pronunciations

Names, places, loanwords — say them exactly how you mean.

Today we’re cooking [gnocchi](nyawki) from [Nice](neese), in the south of France.
Try it with Jessica or Liam — clear diction.
Reels · Hooks

Punchy 3-second openers

Grab attention in the first line, then cut to your content.

*Stop scrolling*. [pause] You’ve been editing audio the hard way this whole time.
Try it with Puck or Bella — energetic.
The cheat sheet

The inline controls

Type these marks right into your script. They’re how you direct the read — where it breathes, what it leans on, how a word is said. Marks are removed from the audio; only their effect remains.

*your words*

Emphasis

Wrap text in single asterisks to lean on it — a small beat just before, plus a lift in stress. Use it on the word that carries the line. It’s a nudge, not a shout (the voice doesn’t get louder, it gets deliberate).

ExampleI *never* said that. a beat, then weight on “never.”
~your words~

Soften

Wrap text in tildes to flatten it — stress is stripped, so it reads quicker and lighter. Good for throwaway asides or the quiet half of a contrast.

ExampleIt was fine, ~i guess~. the aside slips by, underplayed.
[pause]

Short pause — ~0.35s

Drops real silence into the audio (not a guess — actual inserted quiet). Use it to let a point land or to separate two thoughts.

ExampleWait for it. [pause] There it is.
[pause:long]

Long pause — ~0.75s

A longer beat for suspense, sign-offs, or breathing room. (Anything after the colon works — [pause:long], [pause:beat] — it’s all the long pause.)

ExampleAnd the winner is [pause:long] you.
[pause][pause] …stack them

Stack for bigger gaps

Pauses add up. Put two or three in a row for a dramatic hold that’s longer than a single long pause.

ExampleThree. [pause][pause] Two. [pause][pause] One.
[note](say-it-like-this)

Pronunciation override

The part in [ brackets ] is just a note to yourself — it isn’t spoken. The part in ( parentheses ) is what’s actually said. Spell it the way it sounds. Perfect for names, brands, and foreign words the voice would otherwise mangle.

ExampleOur founder, [Siobhan](shiv-awn), built this in Amsterdam. says “shiv-awn.”
,   .   —   …

Punctuation is free rhythm

You don’t need a mark for every breath. Commas, periods, dashes (—) and ellipses (…) already shape the pacing. Three dots ... become a single trailing-off beat. Reach for [pause] when you want more than punctuation gives.

ExampleI thought about it — a lot — and honestly I’m in.
See the difference

The same script, with and without

Plain text works fine. A few marks make it sound like someone meant it. Here’s the same copy, both ways.

A dramatic line (fiction / trailer)
Plain
The house was empty. She knew what came next. There was no turning back.
With marks
The house was empty. [pause] She knew what came next. *There was no turning back.*
Why it lands: the pause lets “empty” hang; the emphasis puts a beat and weight on the final line so it reads like a verdict, not a sentence.
An instruction (tutorial / demo)
Plain
Click Export. Choose WAV for the highest quality. That’s it.
With marks
Click *Export*. Choose *WAV* for the highest quality. That’s it — [pause] done.
Why it lands: emphasis flags the two things a viewer must not miss; the short pause before “done” gives the step a clean finish instead of trailing off.
A tricky name (branding / education)
Plain
Today’s recipe comes from Siobhan, who runs a bakery in Reading.
With marks
Today’s recipe comes from [Siobhan](shiv-awn), who runs a bakery in [Reading](redding).
Why it lands: left alone, both words get read wrong. The overrides make them say “shiv-awn” and “redding” — small fix, big credibility.
Good to know

A few pointers

Close your marks. * and ~ work in pairs — one to start, one to end. Forget the closing mark and the effect runs to the end of the line.
Less is more. Emphasize one word per line, not five. If everything’s stressed, nothing is.
Stack pauses for drama. One [pause] for a breath; [pause][pause] for a hold; [pause:long] for suspense.
Spell it like it sounds. In a pronunciation override, write the parentheses phonetically — (nyawki), not (gnocchi).
Preview, then commit. Generate a line, listen, adjust a mark, regenerate. It’s fast because it’s local.
Punctuation first. Get the commas and periods right before adding marks — they carry most of the rhythm on their own.

Your turn.

Grab the free trial, paste a script, and try a couple of marks.

Start your free trial