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How to Automatically Generate Voiceover Narrations from Airtable for Page Narrations or Podcasts

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Learn how to seamlessly convert any markdown text stored in Airtable into professional, shareable audio. This in-depth guide walks you through using Make.com and ElevenLabs to create automated voiceover narrations for website pages or podcasts, complete with Google Drive integration for easy storage and distribution.
written by Greg Vonf
Greg Vonf

In today’s content-driven world, providing audio versions of your articles, blog posts, or other written content can greatly enhance accessibility and user engagement. Imagine automatically generating a professional-sounding narration for every new post you create in Airtable—ready to be embedded on your website or shared as a podcast. This tutorial will guide you through creating a simple yet powerful workflow where updating a single field in Airtable instantly triggers a Make.com scenario to generate a voiceover using ElevenLabs, store the resulting audio on Google Drive, and update your Airtable with a shareable link.

Example Use Cases

  • Online Article Narration: Instantly convert your blog posts or documentation into audio for enhanced accessibility.
  • Marketing and Social Media: Repurpose existing text content to create engaging audio snippets or promotions.
  • Podcasting or Audio Newsletters: Quickly generate podcast episodes or audio newsletters from your existing text material.

Read on to discover how you can set this up to streamline your content creation process and offer your audience an alternative way to consume your content.

Overview

When you combine the power of Airtable, Make.com (formerly Integromat), and ElevenLabs, you get a seamless pipeline that automates voiceover creation. Below is the high-level process:

  1. Airtable Setup: You maintain your text content in Airtable. By selecting “Generate Voiceover” in a single-select field, you trigger an automation.
  2. Airtable Automation: This automation runs a script to send a webhook request to Make.com, providing the record id.
  3. Make.com Scenario:
    • Retrieve Record from Airtable
    • Convert Markdown to HTML, then HTML to Text (to avoid AI reading links )
    • Generate Voiceover using the official ElevenLabs integration in Make.com
    • Save the Audio in Google Drive
    • Update Airtable with a link to the new audio file

In the following sections, we’ll walk you through each step in detail so you can quickly build and deploy this workflow.

1. Setting Up Your Airtable Base

Airtable will serve as your central content repository for all the text you want to convert to audio.

  1. Create or Open a Base
    Start by creating a new base or opening an existing one where you store your written content. This is where you’ll be triggering the voiceover generation from.

  2. Add Relevant Fields

    • Content (Long Text): The field that holds the article text (possibly in Markdown) for which you want to generate narration.
    • Action (Single Select): Create a single-select field with an option “Generate Voiceover.” This is the trigger condition.
    • Voiceover URL (URL / Text): A field to store the final link to your generated audio file, so you can share or embed it.

Your table might resemble the following:

| Title | Content (Markdown) | Action | Voiceover URL | |--------------|----------------------------------------------|---------------------|---------------| | Sample Title | # Heading 1 \n This is some markdown content | (empty or Generate Voiceover) | (empty) |

2. Configuring the Airtable Automation

Airtable Automations can be used to trigger a script or call a webhook whenever a field is updated.

  1. Create a New Automation
    In the Automations tab, click Create new automation.

  2. Choose a Trigger
    Select “When a record is updated.” Configure it so that it only fires when the Action field is changed to “Generate Voiceover.” This ensures you don’t accidentally trigger the automation otherwise.

  3. Run a Script or Call a Webhook
    After selecting the trigger, you can Run a script or send a webhook. Both methods will send the record details to Make.com. If you’re using a script, it might look like this:

 // replace URL below with the Webhook from your service 
const webhook = "https://yourWbehook.com/webhookid"

// if you want to add more variables you can add them inside the brackets
// e.g. for "newInputVariable1" change to {recordId, newInputVariable1}
const {recordId} = input.config()

// we are using "new URL" object to easier better handling of parameters
const url = new URL(webhook)

// using function below we can pass multiple parameters as values
// to our webhook. In the case above the "recordId value is dynamic"
// and "type" will always say campaign - to help me distinguish source
url.searchParams.set("recordId",recordId)
url.searchParams.set("type","campaign")
// eg. url.searchParams.set("newInputVariable1", newInputVariable1)

//we are logging the complete url for debugging purposes
console.log(url.href)

// we are making a standard GET request with added parameters
// passed as query parameters
const response = await fetch(url.href)

//We are logging response code from our Webhook "OK 200" will mean success.
console.log("Status:"+ response.statusText + " "+ response.status)

// Optional
// we are logging response from Webhook
// Note - if the response is not formated as JSON, below code will not work
//const responseData = await response.json()
//console.log(responseData)

Make sure to pass any additional fields you want to use (like the content or the record’s title).

3. Building the Make.com Scenario

Make.com is a flexible automation platform that allows you to connect various apps and services through modules. Thanks to the official ElevenLabs integration in Make.com, the voice generation step is quite straightforward.

Step A: Set Up the Webhook / Trigger Module

Every scenario in Make.com begins with a trigger that receives data:

  1. Create a New Scenario
    On your Make.com dashboard, create a new scenario.

  2. Add the Webhook Module
    Select “Custom Webhook.” Make.com will generate a unique webhook URL. Copy this URL and paste it into your Airtable script.

When Airtable sends data to this webhook, your scenario will know to start.

Step B: Retrieve the Record from Airtable

  1. Add the Next Module
    Search for Airtable in Make.com’s module list and select “Get a Record.”

  2. Configure the Module

    • Connect your Airtable account (if you haven’t already).
    • Select your base and table.
    • Map the Record ID received from the webhook to fetch the specific row you want to process.

Step C: Convert Markdown to Plain Text

Your content might be stored in Markdown, so you’ll want to convert it to raw text for cleaner TTS input:

  1. Markdown to HTML
    Add a module (built-in parser ) that converts Markdown to HTML. This converts all markdown elements into HTML that we will remove in the next step.

  2. HTML to Text
    Follow it up with an HTML to Text module to remove all remaining tags, leaving you with plain text for ElevenLabs to process.

Step D: Generate Voiceover with ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs offers some of the best quality AI voices, and Make.com now has an official ElevenLabs integration which simplifies the process greatly:

  1. Add the ElevenLabs Module
    Search for ElevenLabs in the Make.com module list.

  2. Connect Your ElevenLabs Account
    Enter your API key, which you can retrieve from your ElevenLabs account settings.

  3. Configure the Text-to-Speech Parameters

    • Choose your preferred voice from the dropdown.
    • Paste the plain text from the previous step.
    • Adjust any TTS settings (e.g., stability or style) according to your needs.

  4. Receive Binary Audio
    The module will generate an audio file in binary format or provide a link, depending on the configuration you choose.

Step E: Save Audio File to Google Drive

Next, store the resulting audio file somewhere accessible:

  1. Add the Google Drive Module
    Choose “Upload a file” or “Create a file from binary.”
  2. Connect Your Google Account
    Give Make.com permission to access the appropriate Google Drive folder.
  3. Map the File Content
    Select the binary audio output from the ElevenLabs module.
  4. Result
    The module will provide a File ID or Shareable Link that you can store in Airtable.

Step F: Update the Airtable Record

Lastly, you’ll want to update the record in Airtable with the link to the newly created audio file:

  1. Add Another Airtable Module
    This time, choose “Update a Record.”
  2. Map the Record ID
    Use the same Record ID from the Webhook step so that Airtable knows which record to update.
  3. Voiceover URL
    In the field mapping, paste the shareable link returned by the Google Drive module.
  4. Change the Action status to "Done" to be provide feedback in Airtable that process have been completed.

Once done, save and activate your scenario. Each time a record is set to “Generate Voiceover,” this entire process will run automatically.

4. Testing and Usage

  1. Activate Your Airtable Automation
    Turn on the automation to ensure the script or webhook is fired correctly.
  2. Activate Your Make.com Scenario
    Make sure your scenario is running (click “ON” in the top right corner).
  3. Try It Out
    In Airtable, set a record’s “Action” to “Generate Voiceover.” Wait a moment, and then check the scenario runs in Make.com.
  4. Verify the Output
    • Confirm that the script fetched the correct record.
    • See the modules convert Markdown to text, generate the audio in ElevenLabs, and upload it to Google Drive.
    • Finally, confirm that Airtable is updated with the link to your new audio file.

5. Sharing and Embedding Your Voiceovers

Having generated audio links in Airtable means you can distribute or embed your voiceovers in various ways:

  1. Website Integration
    Use the <audio> tag in HTML to embed your narrations: 
    <audio controls src="YOUR_GOOGLE_DRIVE_LINK"></audio>
  2. Podcast or RSS
    You can integrate these audio files into a podcast RSS feed, making it easy for users to subscribe and listen.
  3. Marketing Campaigns
    Share the audio links in newsletters, social media posts, or other marketing channels to engage your audience in new ways.
  4. Internal or Team Use
    If your content is internal (like training documents), audio versions can be uploaded to your company’s LMS or knowledge base.

Conclusion

By combining Airtable, Make.com, and ElevenLabs, you can effortlessly transform your text-based content into high-quality audio files. This workflow is:

  • Automated: Triggered simply by selecting “Generate Voiceover” in Airtable.
  • Flexible: Easily customized to meet specific branding or stylistic needs (choose different voices or storage locations).
  • Scalable: Capable of handling multiple records at once or processing them individually based on your needs.

Start creating narrations for your content today and provide a richer, more inclusive experience for your audience—whether they prefer listening on the go, or rely on audio for accessibility.