Turn WordPress articles into audio as you publish, with tools for distribution, monetization, and analytics.<\/p>\n\n
BeyondWords turns selected WordPress posts and pages into audio automatically.<\/p>\n\n
Your editors keep working in WordPress. BeyondWords generates the audio, adds a customizable player, and automatically update audio when articles changes.<\/p>\n\n
Choose from premade voices, generate a voice from a prompt, or create Instant and Professional voice clones. Voices are powered by ElevenLabs.<\/p>\n\n
Embed audio in your articles, create playlists, publish podcast feeds to services such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts, share audio via URL, or share and download audio files.<\/p>\n\n
Set defaults for your publication, then override them on individual posts.<\/p>\n\n
BeyondWords can regenerate audio when an article changes. You can also use WordPress bulk actions to generate audio for existing articles.<\/p>\n\n
For page-builder setups such as Elementor, Magic Embed provides an alternative to the standard REST API integration.<\/p>\n\n
Make audio a subscriber benefit with full, ad-free listening, while using previews or ad-supported audio to encourage other readers to register or subscribe.<\/p>\n\n
Upload your own audio ads or connect your existing ad server through VAST, the common standard for audio advertising.<\/p>\n\n
\n\"We've had great customer feedback and the team have been quick to make adjustments based on our suggestions.\"<\/p>\n \n
Kenneth Creamer, Creamer Media<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
Get started<\/h4>\n\n
Book a demo and we'll help you choose the right setup, voices, player, and monetization options for your publication.<\/p>\n\n
Book a demo<\/a><\/p>\n\n
For questions or support, email support@beyondwords.io<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n
- Install and activate the BeyondWords plugin.<\/li>\n
- Connect it to your BeyondWords project.<\/li>\n
- Choose which posts and pages should become audio.<\/li>\n
- Set your default voice and player preferences.<\/li>\n
- Publish as usual.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n
\n
Can I choose which articles become audio?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Yes. Set defaults for posts and pages, then change the settings for individual articles from the WordPress editor.<\/p><\/dd>\n
What happens when I update an article?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
BeyondWords can regenerate the audio using the updated article text. You can also keep the existing audio when an update doesn't require a new version.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Can we use our own voices?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Yes. You can create Instant or Professional voice clones for journalists, authors, analysts, presenters, or other speakers. You must have the speaker's permission.<\/p>\n\n
You can also choose a premade voice or generate a voice from a prompt.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Can we monetize the audio?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Yes. Upload your own audio ads, connect an existing ad server, or use access tiers to create different listening experiences for visitors, registered readers, and subscribers.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Can we publish the audio as a podcast?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Yes. BeyondWords lets you create podcast feeds for services such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.<\/p><\/dd>\n
Does it work with Elementor and other page builders?<\/h3><\/dt>\n
Yes. The plugin normally connects WordPress to BeyondWords through our REST API. For Elementor and other page-builder setups where that approach isn\u2019t suitable, Magic Embed uses a script on your site to extract and sync the article content instead.<\/p><\/dd>\n\n<\/dl>\n\n\n
7.1.0<\/h4>\n\n
Release date: 4th September 2026<\/p>\n\n
Enhancements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #626<\/a> Import Tool: only offer to import to post types BeyondWords supports, and say why each skipped record was skipped.<\/li>\n
- #623<\/a> Per-block language and voice in the block editor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Fixes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #627<\/a> Give audio creates a longer timeout, and recover the content ID when a create still times out after the API accepted it.<\/li>\n
- #626<\/a> Debug Tool: fix the fatal error raised when activating the plugin.\n\n
\n
- Download the updated ZIP from this release \u2014 every earlier build fails on activation.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #623<\/a> Fix \"Generation disabled\" being ignored on blocks nested inside a Group, Columns or other container.\n\n
\n
- Audio regenerated for an affected post no longer includes those blocks.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #621<\/a> Fix the fatal error shown when the plugin is replaced with a different version from the Plugins screen.\n\n
\n
- Switching away from an existing 7.0.0 install still shows it once; the version being replaced has to be 7.1.0 or later for the fix to apply.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Deprecations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #626<\/a> Removed the SpeechKit Export Tool, which only exported post meta the plugin stopped writing in v4.0.\n\n
\n
- Site Health and the editor's Inspect panel report the same data for current installs.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Compatibility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #626<\/a> Debug Tool: request logging is now switched off on WordPress VIP, where it could not append to its log file safely.<\/li>\n
- #624<\/a> Tested up to WordPress 7.1.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Codebase Enhancements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #626<\/a> Install and smoke-test the extension plugins in CI, and document them in
doc\/extension-plugins.md<\/code>.<\/li>\n- #624<\/a> Turn off Cypress web security so the block editor specs run on WordPress 7.1.<\/li>\n
- #629<\/a> Finalise the 7.1.0 release notes.<\/li>\n
- #628<\/a> Dependency upgrades.<\/li>\n
- #625<\/a> Mount the plugin at a fixed
speechkit<\/code> slug in the local wp-env environments.<\/li>\n- #622<\/a> Correct the 7.0.0 changelog entry for the \"Add Player\" block preview.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
7.0.0<\/h4>\n\n
Release date: 12th August 2026<\/p>\n\n
Enhancements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #566<\/a> Poll the content status before embedding the player.\n\n
\n
- The block and classic editor previews now wait until content has finished processing \u2014 showing a loading spinner meanwhile \u2014 instead of embedding the player immediately and caching a 404 when the audio or video isn't ready yet.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #520<\/a> New settings page and project-wide rewrite.\n\n
\n
- Simplifies the plugin settings \u2014 removing many tabs, fields and options \u2014 so that audio\/video generation and player display are managed from your BeyondWords project settings.<\/li>\n
- Standardises the codebase to WordPress VIP coding standards and migrates CI tooling from Yarn to npm.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #527<\/a> BeyondWords editor redesign for the block and classic editors.\n\n
\n
- New Content (Source, Script template), Format (Output, Video template, Video size), Voice (Language, Model, Voice) and Player (Embed) settings, available in both editors.<\/li>\n
- The Player \"Embed\" setting replaces the \"Display player\" checkbox \u2014 choose \"None\" to hide the player on a post.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #536<\/a> Wire up the Player \"Embed\" setting.\n\n
\n
- The Embed choice (audio\/video \u00d7 post\/script) now controls the rendered player, rather than only showing or hiding it.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #537<\/a> Opt-in \"Customize\" voice and language controls.\n\n
\n
- A per-post \"Customize\" toggle (off by default) reveals the Language and Voice pickers; the project's default language is pre-selected when enabled.<\/li>\n
- The Voice and Language settings are consolidated into the plugin sidebar.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #558<\/a> Reorder the voice picker to Language \u2192 Model \u2192 Voice.\n\n
\n
- \"Model\" is now a language-level filter that narrows the Voice list.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #557<\/a> Preselect \"Generate audio\" by taxonomy term.\n\n
\n
- Reinstates preselecting audio generation for posts assigned specific terms, now across all hierarchical taxonomies and without marking posts as having unsaved changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #555<\/a> Live player preview for the \"Add Player\" block. (Reverted in #568<\/a> before 7.0.0 shipped \u2014 the block shows a static placeholder in the editor; the player still renders on the front end.)<\/li>\n
- #563<\/a> State-reflecting generation labels and \"Legacy\" model rename.\n\n
\n
- The \"Generate audio\" toggle now reads \"Generation enabled\" \/ \"Generation disabled\"; the \"Standard\" voice model bucket is relabelled \"Legacy\".<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #532<\/a> Cache API reads and defer audio generation on WordPress VIP.\n\n
\n
- Editor dropdown data is cached in 15-minute transients; on VIP, audio create\/update is deferred to WP-Cron so the save request returns immediately.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n
- #598<\/a> Send taxonomy terms as
tags<\/code>.\n\n\n
- Breaking: the
metadata<\/code> param is no longer sent. Code hookingbeyondwords_content_params<\/code> to write$params['metadata']<\/code> must append to$params['tags']<\/code> instead, or it will raise a fatal error.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n- #611<\/a> Tidy the classic editor metabox spacing and Content ID layout.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Fixes<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #618<\/a> Poll content status before embedding the block-editor Preview panel player, so a still-processing post (more likely with a customised voice\/model) no longer shows a broken preview.<\/li>\n
- #613<\/a> Fix author names with an ampersand showing as
Smith & Sons<\/code> in the BeyondWords dashboard.<\/li>\n- #612<\/a> Fix tags with an ampersand showing as
r&d<\/code> in the BeyondWords dashboard.<\/li>\n- #610<\/a> Stop the bulk \"Generate audio\" notice counting skipped posts as failures.<\/li>\n
- #606<\/a> Fix posts published with no player when two saves race to create audio.<\/li>\n
- #564<\/a> Sweep the paired
_transient_timeout_beyondwords_*<\/code> rows on uninstall, so no orphaned option rows are left behind.<\/li>\n- #540<\/a> Escape the player
onload<\/code> attribute to prevent stored XSS via the Content ID.<\/li>\n- #539<\/a> Add capability checks to the bulk-edit AJAX handler.<\/li>\n
- #541<\/a> Prevent a player SDK error from clobbering saved content on Fetch.<\/li>\n
- #554<\/a> Return JSON from the bulk-edit AJAX handler and catch delete errors.<\/li>\n
- #553<\/a> Resolve the post ID in
Content::get_content_without_excluded_blocks<\/code>.<\/li>\n- #551<\/a> Track live meta for the Inspect panel Remove button.<\/li>\n
- #550<\/a> Coerce non-string API error messages to avoid a fatal
TypeError<\/code>.<\/li>\n- #543<\/a> Guard a null languages API result in the classic editor voice select.<\/li>\n
- #542<\/a> Surface a
WP_Error<\/code> fromget_content()<\/code> instead of a fatalTypeError<\/code>.<\/li>\n- #588<\/a> Ship
symfony\/dom-crawler<\/code> 5.4.52 to fix CVE-2026-45071 (XXE \/ local file disclosure).\n\n\n
- The composer constraint now floors at the patched release, so a vulnerable version can no longer be bundled.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Deprecations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- Removed the
beyondwords_player_style<\/code>,beyondwords_player_content<\/code>,beyondwords_title_voice_id<\/code>,beyondwords_summary_voice_id<\/code> andbeyondwords_disabled<\/code> post meta keys.\n\n\n
- Existing values are preserved in the database and only removed on full uninstall;
beyondwords_disabled<\/code> is migrated to the new \"Embed\" setting on upgrade.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n- The
beyondwords-*<\/code><head><\/code> meta tags are now only emitted for the client-side (Magic Embed) integration.<\/li>\n- #601<\/a> Removed the \"Script\" option from the post Source setting, which now offers \"Post\" or \"Post + script\".\n\n
\n
- Posts saved as \"Script\" are migrated to \"Post + script\" on upgrade, and keep embedding their script asset.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
Compatibility<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- Tested up to WordPress 7.0.<\/li>\n
- #515<\/a> PHP 8.5 support.\n\n
\n
- Run unit and e2e tests against PHP 8.0 and PHP 8.5 in GitHub Actions.<\/li>\n
- Bumped
phpVersion<\/code> in wp-env to 8.5.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\nCodebase Enhancements<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
- #619<\/a> Run the Cypress suite with pretty permalinks, fixing the block editor Preview panel content-status poll spec.<\/li>\n
- #591<\/a> Refresh the developer documentation in
doc\/<\/code> against the v7 codebase.<\/li>\n- #608<\/a> Fix the intermittent detached-DOM failures in the block editor Cypress specs.<\/li>\n
- #607<\/a> Update two PHPUnit tests left stale by the Script-only Source removal.<\/li>\n
- #602<\/a> Align the player-visibility docs and Cypress specs with the \"Embed\" setting.<\/li>\n
- #600<\/a> Add must-follow documentation and changelog rules to
AGENTS.md<\/code>, withCLAUDE.md<\/code> and Copilot pointer files.<\/li>\n- #533<\/a> Fix failing Cypress tests for v7.<\/li>\n
- #538<\/a> Remove the unused
updatePostMeta<\/code> util from the Inspect panel.<\/li>\n- #562<\/a> Re-enable Plugin Check on
plugin-check-action<\/code> v1.1.7.<\/li>\n- #560<\/a> Cancel superseded CI runs via a concurrency group.<\/li>\n
- #516<\/a> Remove
environment<\/code> from the GitHub workflows.<\/li>\n- #517<\/a>, #535<\/a> Update GitHub Actions dependencies.<\/li>\n
- #514<\/a>, #529<\/a>, #534<\/a>, #616<\/a> Dependency upgrades.<\/li>\n
- Various dependency updates to clear Dependabot security warnings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n