How to use the text to speech reader
- Type or paste the text into the box. The page accepts up to 20,000 characters and shows the count under the box.
- Choose a voice. The list comes from your device and browser. Voices marked online may be run by a remote service, so choose one without that mark for private text.
- Adjust speed (0.5x to 2x), pitch and volume, then press Read aloud. The sentence being read is highlighted in the Now reading box.
- Use Pause and Resume to hold your place, or Stop to end. Changes to speed, pitch and voice apply from the next sentence.
How it works
Your browser includes a speech engine, available to web pages through the Web Speech API. This page splits your text into sentences, breaks any very long sentence at a comma or space so each piece is at most 200 characters, and hands the pieces to the engine one by one. Short pieces are more reliable, because some browsers stop reading a long passage part way through.
The voices and their quality depend on your operating system and browser. A phone, a Mac, a Windows PC and a Chromebook all offer different voices, and a voice you like on one device may not exist on another. If your browser has no speech support at all, the page says so and the controls stay turned off.
Privacy, and what this page cannot do
This site does not upload your text or any audio. The page sends nothing to a server. However, the speech engine belongs to your browser, and some browsers offer voices that run on the vendor's servers. The voice list marks those as online. If you read confidential text, pick a voice without that mark so the text stays on your device.
This page cannot save an audio file. Browsers do not let a web page capture the speech engine's output, so there is no download button and no recording, and the page does not pretend otherwise. If you need an audio file you will have to use software designed for it, and you should read that software's terms before sending text to it.
Pause and resume are handled by the browser and are not equally reliable everywhere. On some devices Pause is ignored, in which case use Stop and start again.
Getting better results
Punctuation controls pacing, so add commas and full stops where you want pauses. Spell out abbreviations and numbers you want pronounced a certain way. Read long documents in sections. To count or analyze your text before reading, use the word counter, and to see how many syllables a passage has, try the syllable counter. Text can also be turned into sound as Morse code with the Morse code translator.
Assumptions and limits
- The page can only use the voices your browser reports. It does not include or download any voice of its own.
- Speech is produced by your browser or operating system, so pronunciation, speed range and pause support vary by device.
- Sentence splitting is simple. Abbreviations that end in a full stop can split a sentence early, which only changes pauses and highlighting.
- There is no audio download. The page does not record, store or transmit what the speech engine plays.
- The text limit is 20,000 characters per reading.
Frequently asked questions
Can I download the speech as an MP3 or WAV file?
No. Browsers do not give web pages access to the sound the speech engine plays, so this page can only read aloud. It does not record or save audio, and it says so rather than offering a button that would not work.
Why are there no voices in the list?
Some browsers load their voices a moment after the page opens, and some devices have none installed. Wait a second and look again. If the list stays empty, the browser or operating system has no speech voices or no speech support, and the page cannot add its own.
What does a voice marked online mean?
It means the browser reports that voice as running on a remote service instead of on your device. Choosing it may send your text to that service. Voices without the mark run locally. Pick a local voice for private text.
Why did the reading stop in the middle of a long text?
Some browsers cut off long utterances. The page splits text into short pieces of up to 200 characters to avoid this, but a device-specific problem can still end the reading. Press Read aloud again, try another voice, or read the text in smaller parts.
Does the speed setting change the pitch of the voice?
Speed and pitch are separate controls. Speed runs from 0.5 times to 2 times the normal rate and pitch from 0 to 2 around the normal value. How well a voice handles extremes depends on the voice, and very high or low settings can sound unnatural.