You can read books, magazines, and news articles or listen to music in Google Play using the TalkBack screen reader. Learn how to turn on TalkBack.
Note: TalkBack is not available for all formats.
Find and listen to books, news & music
Find and read books
Find your book
- If you haven’t already, turn on TalkBack.
- Open Play Books .
- Explore the app to find a book:
- Tabs: At the bottom, you’ll find tabs like "Home," "Shop," and "Library" or "My Library." Some of these might take you out of the app.
- Navigation drawer: At the top left, you’ll find the navigation drawer. Open to explore Shop, Help & Feedback, and Settings.
- Genre-based suggestions: Swipe to the bottom and select "Tell us what you like."
- "Home": Search for a book you don’t have and download it.
Read a book
- If you haven’t already, turn on TalkBack.
- Open Play Books .
- If you already have the book, find it in the "Library" or "Home" screens.
- If you don’t have the book, search for it at the top of the "Home" screen, then pick a result and download the book.
- Open the book.
- Tap the screen, then double-tap to enter skim mode.
- Select More Read aloud.
- To move through the text on a page, swipe.
- To flip pages, two-finger swipe left or right.
Read the news
Navigate news articles
- If you haven’t already, turn on TalkBack.
- Open Play Newsstand .
- You’ll be on the Home screen. Tabs at the bottom let you navigate to different places inside the app, such as "For You," "Library," "Explore," and "Read Later."
- Navigation drawer: At the top left.
- For You: At the bottom left. This tab has suggested news articles.
- Library: At the bottom. This tab has your sources and topics of interest.
- Explore: At the bottom. This tab has a list of topics you can add to your Library.
- Read Later: At the bottom right. This tab contains articles you’ve saved to read later.
Read an article
- If you haven’t already, turn on TalkBack.
- Open Play Newsstand .
- Swipe or explore by touch to find an article, then double-tap it to start reading
- Optional: To save the article for later, go to the top right and select Read later .
Find and play music
Navigate music
- If you haven’t already, turn on TalkBack.
- Open Play Music .
- You’ll be on the Home screen.
- Navigation drawer: At the top left. The drawer holds your Music library, Settings, Help & Feedback and categories of music.
- Recent: At the upper right. This tab holds albums and stations you’ve played recently.
- Suggestions: Explore the Home screen. These cards list suggested artists and stations.
Play a radio station
- If you haven’t already, turn on TalkBack.
- Open Play Music .
- Swipe to move through radio stations until you find the one you want to hear.
- Swipe again to select Play .
- Double-tap to start playing.
Use the player
With the player focused, you can rate a song thumbs-up or thumbs-down, pause it, or skip to the next or previous song.
- With the Google Play Music app player focused, two-finger swipe left to go to the previous song.
- With the Google Play Music app player focused, two-finger swipe right to go to the next song.
Tips and tricks
- The Navigation drawer and tabs are on most screens, so you can use them as landmarks.
- If you can’t find the Navigation drawer, open it with a two-finger swipe right.