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:
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At the bottom right, select the time.
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Or press Alt + Shift + s.
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- Select Settings Accessibility.
- 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
- At the bottom right, select the time.
- Or press Alt + Shift + s.
- Select Settings Accessibility.
- Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on Select-to-speak.
Step 2: Select & hear text
Important: Depending on your keyboard, you can press the Search key or the Launcher key for some shortcuts. Both keys work the same.
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.
To stop Select-to-Speak while it’s reading, press Ctrl or the Search key . You can also select Stop .
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.
- At the bottom right, select the time.
- Or press Alt + Shift + s.
- Select Settings Accessibility.
- Under "Text-to-Speech," turn on Select-to-speak.
- Select Open select-to-speak settings.
- Under "Highlighting," you can:
- Turn on Highlight each word as it is spoken.
- Next to "Color for word highlights," select a color.
- To get the strongest contrast, you may use green or pink, especially if you use high contrast mode.
- Turn on Shade background content.
- 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.
- At the bottom right, select the time.
- Or press Alt + Shift + s.
- Select Settings Accessibility.
- Under "Text-to-Speech," select Open select to speech settings.
- Under "Highlighting," turn off Enable navigation controls.