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Hear text read aloud
You can hear full pages read aloud with Chromebook’s built-in screen reader. You can hear parts of a page, including specific words, read aloud with Select-to-speak.
Listen to all text
To have pages read aloud to you, turn on your Chromebook’s built-in screen reader:
At the bottom right, select the time.
- Or press Alt + Shift + s .
- Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on ChromeVox .
Tip: When you press Ctrl + Alt + z , you can turn ChromeVox on or off from any page. Learn how to use the built-in screen reader .
Listen to part of a page
To select specific text on a page to be read to you, turn on Select-to-speak.
Step 1: Turn on Select-to-speak
- Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on S elect-to-speak .
Step 2: Select & hear text
Option 1 Press and hold the Search key . Drag the pointer over an area of text.
Option 2 Highlight the text to be read. Press the Search key + s .
Option 3 At the bottom right, near the time, select Select-to-Speak . Drag the pointer over an area of text.
Tip: If you’re on a touchscreen, tap a line of text or drag your finger over an area of the screen.
Your Chromebook reads the section aloud and each word is highlighted.
Tip: With navigation controls, you can pause and play, adjust speed, and skip lines of text.
Highlight or shade background text
If you are using Select-to-speak, each word will be highlighted as it's spoken. You can turn off highlighting, change the color of the highlighted words, or shade the screen behind selected text.
- Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on Select-to-speak .
- Select Open select-to-speak settings .
- Turn on Highlight each word as it is spoken .
- To get the strongest contrast, you may use green or pink, especially if you use high contrast mode.
- This allows you to shade the whole screen, except for the text being spoken.
Disable Select-to-speak navigation features
Important: When “Enable Navigation Controls” is turned off, quick access to pause and play, adjust speed, and skip lines of text is disabled.
- Under "Text-to-Speech," select Open select to speech settings .
- Under "Highlighting," turn off Enable navigation controls .
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