Reviews
First impressions are super. Natural flowing voice and very helpful for multitasking and also giving my eyes a rest.
Giuseppe
Thank you so much for this extension. I absolutely swear by it whenever I need to read any large chunk of text. The combination of hearing it in a clear voice (...) Its fantastic, thank you so much.
Abi
LOVE this extension. I remember better when i hear a story vs reading
David
This is a phenomenal extension. Better than anything else I tryed so far. Simple, easy, customizable (...) I would recommend this whole heartedly to anyone who has dyslexia like me, or any other reasons for not beeing able to read comfortably at all times.
Merlin
Overview
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.
Basic Usage
Extension Button
Right Click Menu
Advanced Usage
Shortcuts
ALT/Option + P : Play/Pause
ALT/Option + O : Stop
ALT/Option + Comma : Rewind
ALT/Option + Period : Forward
Customization
You can change the voice, reading speed, pitch, or enable text highlighting:
- Click the Read Aloud icon on the Extensions menu.
- Stop any text that may be playing.
- Click on the Gear icon in the Read Aloud context menu. (It may take a second or two for settings to appear)
Using Premium Voices
Using Premium Voices (Google Wavenet & Amazon Polly)
Installation
Chrome and Chromium-based browsers
You can get the latest available Read Aloud Extension version from the Chrome Web Store.
Firefox
You can get the latest version of Read Aloud Extension from the Mozilla Add-ons website.
Firefox install from source
- Create a build directory with
mkdir build
- Run
npm run-script package
- Extract the resulting zip file. You should see a
manifest.json which will be used later.
- In Firefox, first make sure there isn't an existing read-aloud add-on already installed
- type
about:debugging in the Address bar and enter.
- Click on "This Firefox" then click "Load Unpackaged Extension"
- Select the
manifest.json file produced earlier.
Packaging
Run npm run package to package the current checkout. Requires Node.js and the
zip command. The browser label is inferred from the branch: master/main
means Chrome; firefox, firefox-mv3, edge, brave, and thunderbird use
their respective browser names. For feature branches, detached checkouts, or
exported source trees, provide the label explicitly:
npm run package -- --browser=firefox
The browser option labels the package; it does not switch branches or convert
the extension to another browser. Use the appropriate source checkout.
Output is build/read-aloud-<browser>-<manifest-version>.zip. Each run creates
a fresh archive and replaces that output only after ZIP creation succeeds,
so deleted files cannot remain from an earlier build. Source maps and
.DS_Store files are excluded. Existing packages for other browsers or versions
are retained.
The same tools/package.js and npm package script can be merged or copied
to each browser branch. The root background.js is included when present,
supporting both service-worker and script-based background implementations.
Contribute
- Star this GitHub repo :star:
- Post about it on your social media (Twitter / Blogs / Facebook / Instagram etc).
- Leave a positive review on the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Addon pages.
- Create pull requests, submit bugs, suggest new features or documentation updates 🛠
- To do so, go to this page and click the New issue button.
Community Forks
Credits
Images
