ken107 / read-aloud

An awesome browser extension that reads aloud webpage content with one click

A Text to Speech Voice Reader extension for your browser!

Chrome Web Store | Firefox Addon | Blog | Website

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_{A little browser extension built with ❤︎ by Hai Phan and contributors}

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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:

1. Click the Read Aloud icon on the Extensions menu.
2. Stop any text that may be playing.
3. 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

1. Create a build directory with mkdir build
2. Run npm run-script package
3. Extract the resulting zip file. You should see a manifest.json which will be used later.
4. In Firefox, first make sure there isn't an existing read-aloud add-on already installed
5. type about:debugging in the Address bar and enter.
6. Click on "This Firefox" then click "Load Unpackaged Extension"
7. Select the manifest.json file produced earlier.

Contribute

• Star this GitHub repo ⭐
• 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.

Credits

Images

• Streamline Labs
• Freepik

read-aloud's Issues

crap

Power off every timr

Ability to vary languages, speed et al not available under Chrome OS

Hi

This extension was working well under Chrome on my old Windows 10 laptop, but under Chrome OS 63 on my Chromebook it is no longer allowing selection between voices or saving changes to pitch or volume

All I am seeing in the options is as the screenshot below

I did manage to get the UK English Google voice to work with another screenreader, but that extension was otherwise pretty terrible

Any suggestions for getting this extension working again for me?

Should use chrome.storage.sync instead of local

Should we sync settings across computers?

Read from here

Every time, it reads the whole webpage from the beginning. Is it possible to start reading from a specific location? (read from a selected word and go on)

German voice

The speech rate (speed) must be increased for the German language (Google Deutsch). If this i not done some words will not be spoken out.
For the text:

Das sind beispielsweise Hinweise auf Gedenktage, Jahrestage, ein passendes Gedicht zu einem bestimmten Anlass oder sonstige interessante Begebenheiten, die nicht unmittelbar mit Göcklingen in Verbindung stehen. Wir werden uns aber weiter bemühen, Sie originell zu unterrichten.

Speaking stop at "Sie ori". "ginell zu unterrichten." is not spoken.

Don't read PDF page header/footer

Strangely, header/footer text are always read first.

Strategy: grab the text of the next page and trim the head and tail that's the same on both pages.

Delay Between sentances

Is there anyway to reduce delay between sentences ?

Is it possible to cast to other devices?

I couldn't make it work with my speaker. Chromecasting would be logical extension of functionality I guess.

Read-aloud changes the settings for browser system web text to speech.

Our website builder at 1der1.com adds text-to-speech to all created pages unless you choose to silence it.

After adding the Chrome read-aloud extension, we noticed that our text-to-speech had more than 170 voices in the list instead of the usual 20 - wonderful.

However, the installation of read-aloud changes the default Chrome setting for speed. Our pages speak slower than usual now. The slower voice is sweet for some languages (like English), but others sound intoxicated, for example, the female German Google voice. You can check this here:

https://1der1.de/mercedes-benz

You have to add German to your browser languages to hear the German voice.
If you have English in your Chrome setting, you will hear the German text pieces with the German voice and the English fragments with an English voice. All languages are supported on a page if there is a matching voice in the list.

BTW: Firefox stays with the feeble Microsoft Windows system voice "Anna".

Opera extension

Hello

Please do you have Opera extension? as Chrome is eating all my laptop resources (i7 + 16G-Ram (40%)! ),

It seems like Opera have almost same way of making extensions as what is being used in Chrome and maybe it's easy to convert it to Opera, and If there's any way a programmer (me) can help then I hope to help for sure just please if you could show me how I will do it.

Thanks

When an article mixed with two languages

Nice app!

But can not read chinese words when select english reader, and can not read english words when select Chinese.

Is there an option to read an article with two language words?

Voice cuts out when reading

Using Chrome: Voice Amazon US Salli

On latest version, when selecting a block of text to read the voice will cut out after a certain amount of time spent reading.

Option to ignore certain characters

User suggests allow using regex to exclude references, etc.

Đọc cùng lúc 2 thứ tiếng và nhiều giọng trong 1 văn bản ?

paragraph skipping

the paragraph starting with "We can represent these three factors" is missed

http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap1.html

Abbreviation Handling

1. Abbreviations are causing sentence breaks.
2. Some overloaded abbreviations could be distinguished by context, e.g. Oak St. means Street, while St. Maria means Saint.

Suggested solution is to do preprocessing using a master list of abbreviations

Add paging buttons for PDF

add buttons [1], [2], [3]... to jump to specific pages

Suggest an export audio file feature

I suggest a feature that allow user export the audio file. So the user can prepare and bring list of book in smartphone everywhere.

Thanks.

Localization for all popular languages

English
Spanish
Vietnamese

Portuguese
Russian
Polish
French
German
Italian
Chinese
Japanese
Korean

reads mathemetical symbols twice

http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap1.html

please see attached pic.

it reads x1 as x1x1, and x2 as x2x2.

another :

Firefox plugin

Add options_ui in manifest
Use speechSynthesis API instead of chrome.tts
no equivalent for chrome.ttsEngine so that will remain chrome-only

Change voice selection to multi-select

Goal is allow selecting default voices for each language

Implement payment for Amazon voices

caching generated speech audio
usage_history page
i18n for balance page
purchase page

Add additional Viet voices from OpenFPT

premium

Never reads page

I have tried several pages and when I click the button, it doesn't read anything, just gives me a link to report a problem.

Can't read aloud selected text when viewing Google Docs

Need special code to get the selected text in Google Docs

MathML support

MathJax

List of test sites:
http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~sransom/web/Ch1.html

Sử dụng phần mềm trong các trình đọc file pdf, word,.... trên website

Support for special sites

ixl.com
Google Play books
Getepic (children picture book site)
Yuzu
Elsevier
Scribd
Bookshelf
ReadAnyBook
Word Online
VitalSource
ReadWorks.org
Overdrive (need library card)
Redshelf / Virdocs
Chegg
i-ready.com
voice.google.com
LuminPDF
scholastic
hawkeslearning.com
fviewer.com
reader.texidium.com

Thank you!

Just wanted to let you know that your extension is just amazing. :-)

Keeps stopping

I only read one paragraph then stopped, then I have to start over. Why is this happening?? Please help. Thanks

Đọc song ngữ từng cầu với Google Dịch

Chào anh, em thiết nghĩ tại sao phần mềm này không nâng cấp để có thể tự động đọc phần dịch của Google và phần câu nguyên gốc xen kẽ từng câu như vậy sẽ giúp cho người dùng có thể vừa đọc tin tức vừa học từ vựng với bất kỳ ngôn ngữ nào ạ.
Xin chân thành cảm ơn anh về phần mềm hữu ích này.

Icon disappears in dark themes

Need silhouette

Appears to be working but I hear nothing

It's installed, it shows that it's working, but I hear nothing. I have the volume up and nothing else open that plays any sound. I have verified that my soundcard IS working properly. Please help and thank you in advance!

If it can read aloud when i am slecting the text,it must be better!

👍

Không thể đọc theo đoạn văn được bôi đen khi đọc file pdf online

Em chào anh ạ,
Em hy vọng anh có thể cải thiện một chút về chức năng bôi đen đoạn văn trong file pdf hoặc file word thay vì chỉ đọc luôn hẳn nguyên trang , và có thể tự động chuyển đổi nhiều giọng đọc và tốc độ đọc khác nhau để người nghe có thể tập trung hơn khi đọc một cuốn sách dài ạ.
Thanks anh nhiều vì tool quá tuyệt vời ạ.

No longer able to read PDF in latest FF

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1466629

Auto-save options

User shouldn't need to click Save

Dự án cộng đồng, audiobook song ngữ

Chào anh Ken107,
Tụi em hiện tại đang làm các dự cộng đồng phổ cập Ielts cho mọi người và xa hơn nữa - giai đoạn dịch thuật toàn bộ sách luyện thi Ielts Cambridge Reading và Listeing hiện đã hoàn thành, và đang trong giai đoạn sản xuất audio song ngữ để mọi người có thể học dễ dàng học trong mọi hoàn cảnh.
Và đây là link một demo dự án tụi em đang thực hiện ạ:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=214453535779945&id=100016459000518
https://sites.google.com/site/learnvocabinieltsreading/home/cambridge-ielts-12/collecting-as-a-hobby

Tình cờ biết được Extension của anh trên github, nên em nảy ra ý tưởng mời anh hợp tác cùng dự án để dự án có thể mở rộng ra cho nhiều lĩnh vực, giúp ích cho người Việt Nam ạ.

Ý tưởng của em:

• Tool sẽ tự động đọc lần lượt các cụm câu Anh-Việt luân phiên
• Trong các câu tiếng Việt, các collocation sẽ được thay thế bằng cụm từ tiếng Anh.
• Xuất file audio song ngữ/ chuyện chêm ra file .mp3.
• Tự động chọn ngẫu nhiên một vài giọng đọc định sẵn trong một bài Reading, để giúp người học dễ ghi nhớ hơn.

_ Vướng mắc còn lại sẽ khó để tool nhận dạng được liên tiếp tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt, nên em xin đưa ra giải pháp:

• Đối với bài Reading Anh-Việt, ---> sẽ quy định số câu trong 1 đoạn.
• Đối với chuyện chêm các cụm từ Anh-Việt, --->dùng dấu [ ] để giới hạn cho tools biết đâu là các cụm từ Anh - Việt để thay đổi.

Với những gì mà dự án đã thực hiện, em tin rằng dự án sẽ phát triển mạnh và xa hơn nhiều nếu được sự hỗ trợ quý báu của anh, không chỉ là đối với việc học Ielts mà còn trên tiếng Anh cho các lĩnh vực chuyên nghành khác nhau. Một tương lai hơn 90 triệu người Việt Nam thành thạo tiếng Anh sớm thành hiện thực ạ.

Chân thành cảm ơn anh đã dành thời gian đọc bài viết của em,
và em xin chúc anh năm mới nhiều sức khỏe và nhiều thuận lợi hơn trong sự nghiệp của mình.

Playlist function?

Inline highlighting suggestion?

It'd be great if there was an option to have the text of the webpage itself be highlighted!

Create an FAQ page for common issues

With links to YouTube videos showing how to fix
Show on support/contact page

server-side detectLanguage fallback for Chrome <47

https://github.com/wooorm/franc

Shortcut keys for Pause/Stop/Next/Prev

Defaults:
Pause/Resume: ALT-P
Stop: ALT-S
FF: ALT->
RW: ALT-<

Add link bottom of options page:
[chrome://extensions/configureCommands](Edit shortcut keys)

read-aloud stopped working

Hi Ken,

For Chrome, windows 10, reading content of "http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/0.11/blueprints/",
Paragraph content "So if you have a blueprint in the folder yourapplication/admin and you want to render the template 'admin/index.html' and you have provided templates as a template_folder you will have to create a file like this: yourapplication/admin/templates/admin/index.html.",

read-aloud stopped reading and will NOT read any other paragraph, even after page refresh.

Thanks for the help.

Love and peace,
Joe

Support for Google Slides

Icono en la barra de chrome

Hola, he instalado Texto a voz, lo eliminé y lo he vuelto a instalar pero no despliega la botonera. Al hacer click no hace nada. Cual puede ser mi error?
Gracias

Local PDF upload feature no longer works

It just not do more than 3 pages

This is so frustrating... I cant get it to read more than one page and I have to reset my whole computer and power down?

Ability to "pop out" the popup into a separate window