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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 .

google text to speech

  • 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

google text to speech

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.

google text to speech

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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