Description from extension meta
Read out loud the current web-page article with one click. Supports 40+ languages.
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Description from store
Tired of sitting, tired of reading? Click a button, jump on your bed, and have the article read aloud to you. You can choose from many available male and female voices. You can also set the pitch of the voice and the reading speed. Supports PDF.
Starting in version 1.4.6, you can use your Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account to enable Amazon Polly and Google Wavenet voices.
Read Aloud is a Chrome and Firefox extension that uses text-to-speech technology to convert webpage text to audio. It works on a variety of websites, including news sites, blogs, fan fiction, publications, textbooks, school and class websites, online universities and course materials.
Read Aloud is aimed at users who prefer to listen to content instead of reading, people with dyslexia or other learning disabilities, children learning to read, or simply to provide users with alternative way to consume web content.
Read Aloud allows you to select from a variety of text-to-speech voices, including those provided natively by the browser, as well as by text-to-speech cloud service providers such as Google Wavenet, Amazon Polly, IBM Watson, and Microsoft. Some of the cloud-based voices may require additional in-app purchase to enable.
Recent developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence has enabled very high-quality speech synthesis. Google Wavenet, Amazon Polly voices, for example, use bleeding edge technology to provide life-like synthetic speech that is close to that of human speech. Read Aloud allows you to use your own Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services account to enable these voices.
To use Read Aloud, simply navigate to the web page you want to read, then click the Read Aloud icon on the Chrome menu. In addition, the shortcut keys ALT-P, ALT-O, ALT-Comma, and ALT-Period can be used to Play/Pause, Stop, Rewind, and Forward, respectively. You may select the text you want to read before activating the extension. Right clicking on the selected text will provide you with yet another context-menu option to activate Read Aloud.
To change the voice, reading speed, pitch, or enable text highlighting, go to the Options page either by right clicking on the Read Aloud icon and choose Options, or by clicking the Gear button on the extension popup (you'll need to stop playback to see the Gear button).
Read Aloud is an open-source project I created in my spare time to satisfy my own need. I'm surprised that it has become quite popular and glad that it's been useful to many people. If you wish to contribute bug fixes or translations, please visit the GitHub page (https://github.com/ken107/read-aloud). If you see bugs or have suggestions to make the extension better, please don't hesitate to provide feedback via the "report issue" link inside the app.
Latest reviews
- (2020-04-13) Sajjad Kareem M: perfect 👌
- (2020-04-12) Павел Цветков: Классное расширение!
- (2020-04-11) Jett Jackson: I am very grateful. Too lazy to read ToS, so I just got this. Then, i can just listen to it.
- (2020-04-09) Azhaar Mumtaz: nicee
- (2020-04-08) Luiz Gustavo Costa Gomes Barbosa: Um dos melhores TTS do mercado , grande biblioteca de de vozes , inclusive POLLY da Amazon e WATSON da IBM. Perfeito.
- (2020-04-07) Krzysztof Domagała: Robi robotę.
- (2020-04-06) J CCC: Simply amazing. The most naturally synthesized voice ever and it's super ease to use. My favorite is the highlighting of the reading text, that helps me concentrate.
- (2020-04-04) Martha Davis: My sons do online school. This allows my son who is mentally half his age to feel like he is doing it on his own. Thank you. This has made a big difference in just a couple of days. My son not only did his work without much help but was smiling about it.
- (2020-04-04) Pankaj Devarai: Simply does what it advertises
- (2020-04-04) Mohsin Khan Shuvo: BEST EXTENSION FOR CONVERTING TEXT TO SPEECH. I LOVE IT.
- (2020-04-04) Todoran Mihai: I really like this app. Best in this category. I really like because works with PDF file. I'm very happy. Keep going!
- (2020-04-04) Vivek More: needs - bigger popup box size options - adjustable reading speed
- (2020-04-03) Alan R. Johnson: Excellent, it does what it says on the tin, i.e., reads aloud from text on the screen. Wish list: a "read from here" option.
- (2020-04-03) Gyuri Lucza: Ez végre működik is! :)
- (2020-04-03) Kwok Kin: GOOD
- (2020-04-02) Miguel Luna Nuñez: Simplemente excelente.
- (2020-04-01) Adnan Dabaan: works on epub reader extension, thanks
- (2020-03-31) Neeyat Lotlikar: I'm glad I found this extension, alas! I have been searching for a text-to-speech extension or app which I could use on Google Chrome for a long time and had no luck whatsoever. I'm glad that when I did find it, it was certainly one of the best ones. It gives you an option to choose the voice you'd like to use (in the extension settings options) and you can also make it read selected text and pause it whenever required. Awesome!
- (2020-03-31) Sérgio Miguel: If you take some time to choose your prefered voice and dial in your best/prefered settings this is basically the only extension you will ever need for this end! Thank you for making this available
- (2020-03-30) Joseph Staples: This is the same voice/cadence as the Adobe PDF reader, which is really stilted and slow. If you could change the speed it would be listenable.
- (2020-03-30) Adrià Polls: Una vez configurada la voz que te guste más, es una delicia de lector a voz. Excelente! Muchas gracias por esta labor tan bien programada ;)
- (2020-03-30) Adam A: Just What I Was Looking For! Helping me get through the 1000 work policies that I have.
- (2020-03-28) Roman: I really like this extension ;) I can see how much effort you put into this project #loveit Some suggestions: 1. add download mp3 2. highlight and scroll text within the original tab/window option ( without opening the pop up window of the extension) thanks
- (2020-03-28) Jia Xia: great
- (2020-03-27) Sofi LaFetra: really good
Latest issues
- (2020-05-26, v:1.31.0) Laura Rosenberg: pages or chapters?
Is there a way to skip to the next page or chapter? The forward button only moves forward one paragraph at a time. And whenever I leave the webpage and go back it starts back at the beginning. Since I have to read an 8-chapter book across multiple sittings, this isn't really practical. - (2020-05-21, v:1.31.0) Bucketbot: Right click toolbar button gone?
Hi, did the right click menu functionality disappear? - (2020-05-19, v:1.31.0) Milad Pourrahmani: Security Concerns
Which parties will potentially have access to the read texts? Has this app been externally reviewed? - (2020-05-16, v:1.31.0) Waqas Rabbani: Microsoft George Desktop - English (Great Britain) not available
Dear developer, I am huge fan of your extension. I have reading difficulties, and this extension has done wonders for me. I prefer George British English accent. I have installed it in my desktop, and thus it is available to me offline for Microsoft Windows and Office. But it is not available offline in your extension, though other desktop voices (David, Hazel and Zira) are available offline. Can you please help me, and make George British available in your extension, as it is already installed in my Windows? I will be highly greatful. - (2020-05-15, v:1.31.0) Matthew Bowles: Google Wavenet Voices
The Google Wavenet voices have disappeared. I've even clicked on the button to grant additional permissions to enable the Google Wavenet voices, but the voices still won't show up. - (2020-05-15, v:1.31.0) Александър Сотиров: Google Wavenet voices disappeared, can't be selected.
Google Wavenet voices disappeared from extension choose menu only Google standard voices left. Please can you do something about that? - (2020-05-15, v:1.31.0) Ignacio Alfonso Toledo Robres: IBM WATSON VOICE
Recently some one have removed the voice of IBM Watson. It will to come back ?, can be again among the voice options? . Was the best voice. - (2020-05-12, v:1.30.0) RJ: it isn't showing in the contextual menu
it isn't showing in the contextual menu, when you select the text and right click, i was going to put this along with a 1 rating, just so that you fix the issue and would have undo my rating. please let me know if you are working on fixing this,. i tried disabling the addon and also restarted the browser, still it didn't work - (2020-05-08, v:1.29.0) Claudinei Felipe: I changed the tab: access to sites
When I returned to the option "on all sites" started the following error: MEDIA_ELEMENT_ERROR: Format error. Restart your notebook and continue. Now I will reinstall to solve. Ps - Thank you very much for all the efforts applied to this service, I use it every day. God bless! Original message in Portuguese ... - Eu alterei a aba: acesso aos sites Quando retornei para a opção "em todos os sites" começou o seguinte erro: MEDIA_ELEMENT_ERROR: Format error. Já reinicie o notebook e continua. Agora vou reinstalar para solucionar. Ps - Muito obrigado por todos os esforços aplicado à este serviço, uso todos os dias. Deus abençoe! - (2020-05-08, v:1.29.0) Adam Klar: Please make it easier to adjust the speed.
Please make it easier to adjust the speed. - (2020-05-07, v:1.29.0) Darth Vegeta: Gale
Why the fuck has Gale's voice, the only half decent auto narrator on the entire internet universe, has been replaced with a female who cant pronounce shit? - (2020-05-07, v:1.29.0) Jake Ripp: Wont conect
so it stoped working with ibm watson so i made a imb account paid them $200 for the voice and have no idea how to make it work cuz when i try to use your program to read text nothing plays - (2020-05-05, v:1.29.0) Carina B Maliakkal: Abbreviation, symbols and chemicals - can user define it?
First of all, thank you, this is a very convenient tool. 1) Abbreviations I am wondering if there a way the user can teach the system how to read specific things like abbreviations? Is it something I couldn't find in the settings or is it currently non-existent? For example, if the software is reading a passage which says 'AI' that it will read it as 'artificial intelligence' once I set it to? On a slightly higher level, can I save in my google account that Read Aloud will read it as Adobe Illustrator for me (and not as artificial intelligence)? On a similar note, it is very nice to see that the SI units are read in full. For example ML is Read Aloud as Mega liters. However I run into issues - if within the document the authors defined ML as an abbreviation for 'monolayer' & then its very confusing to hear megaliter & then convert in my head to monolayer. 2) Symbols of elements I am a material scientist and it will be better to hear the chemical symbols in papers as the full name. For example- 'Au' is the symbol for gold. It is better read as and not Au. At least for all the pure elements in the periodic table (not compounds) it would be straightforward to read the full form. - (2020-05-05, v:1.29.0) krrish balanagu: VOICE CHANGING
Dear Developer, when i am listening my PDF , voice is changing from male to female and again female to male automatically. This problem arised suddenly. what to do?? - (2020-05-01, v:1.29.0) S: Speech cuts short when TTS is initiated from context menu
Hi, Whenever i try to initiate TTS by selecting speak in context menu, the speech stops after sentence or two. But it runs without issue when I run TTS by clicking button on menu. - (2020-04-28, v:1.29.0) Gabriel Carrijo: When a paragraph starts with a [ or ' the extension doesn't read
Hello, first of all your extension is a life saver. But recently I became aware of some problems, mostly is when a paragraph starts with a caracter '´[ and others on the website www.webnovel.com the extension doesn't read, it ignores and reads the other lines. - (2020-04-27, v:1.29.0) Ashley Haarstick: Ed Law 2 D
Hello, Our district is hoping to us your application during our current school closure. Before doing so we need our Ed Law 2 D paperwork signed. If you are not familiar with Ed Law 2 D, it is a NYS requirement for schools to have signed when using an application, which ensures all student data is protected. Please let me know who I can send the paperwork to? - (2020-04-26, v:1.29.0) Yehuda K: Music stops when extension active
Hello from israel:) Thanks so much for the extension! Please if you can add thisfunctionality: when music is playing (from youtube for example) and the plugin is activated then the music stops, and after the plugin has finish reading, the music will return. Thanks anyway for this wonderful plugin. - (2020-04-25, v:1.29.0) Guilherme: Autoselect option to choose voice in diferente languages.
I'm read sites in Portuguese and English. The English voice by the auto-select is good but the Portuguese isn't. There a better Portuguese voice in the list that I want that autoselect choose. Is possible to custom the autoselect choice? - (2020-04-23, v:1.29.0) James Cunningham: How to download the audio file
Please advise how to download the audio file to MP3 thanks James. - (2020-04-21, v:1.29.0) Wild Dog: Can't pause it.
When I press pause on my keyboard it pauses temporarily but comes back. It won't pause indefinitely. - (2020-04-21, v:1.29.0) Murat Ciftkaya: ipadde uzantı calıştırmak
merhaba, ipad masaüstü görünümünde bu uzantı (read aloud) nasıl çalıştırılabilir? - (2020-04-20, v:1.29.0) Sarah Thompson: Voice stops reading mid sentence after a short while.
Only started doing it just recently. I select an area to read, right click and select the appropriate option for read aloud to read out the text. It does so but stops after about 20 seconds. Pressing ALT+P does not make it continue reading, it simply starts again from the beginning. Alt+. however, jumps to the next sentence, skipping the bit between where it stopped and the new sentence. Hope this is descriptive enough. - (2020-04-18, v:1.29.0) Arda BAKTIR: Disabling Tex
Can you please add a feature so that Read Aloud doesn't read Tex/ MathTex? - (2020-04-18, v:1.29.0) Arda BAKTIR: Skipping by a word
Can you add the function of skipping by a word after clicking a shortcut rather than skipping whole sentences/paragraphs?