Hear text read aloud on your Pixelbook

Listen to all text

To have pages read aloud to you, turn on your device's built-in screen reader:

1. At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings
3. At the bottom, select Advanced.
4. In the 'Accessibility' section, select Manage accessibility features.
5. Under 'Text to Speech', turn on Enable ChromeVox.

Note: You can turn ChromeVox on or off from any page:

• On a keyboard: Press Ctrl + Alt + z.
• On a tablet: Press and hold the Volume down + Volume up buttons for 5 seconds. While holding the buttons, you’ll hear a sound to indicate that it's working. Keep holding the buttons, then ChromeVox will start speaking.

For more information on the built-in screen reader, see Related articles.

Listen to part of a page

To have only some text on a page read to you, turn on Select to Speak.

Step 1: Turn on Select to Speak

1. Select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings .
3. At the bottom, select Advanced.
4. In the 'Accessibility' section, select Manage accessibility features.
5. Under 'Text to Speech', turn on Enable Select to Speak.

Step 2: Select and hear text

1. To select what text you'd like to hear:
   • Press and hold the Search key  and select a line of text.
   • Press and hold the Search key  and drag the pointer over an area of the screen.
   • ​Highlight the text and press the Search key  + s
   • Select Select-to-speak . Then select a line of text or drag the pointer over an area of the screen.
   • On a touchscreen: Tap Select-to-speak . Then tap a line of text or drag your finger over an area of the screen.
2. Your device will read the section aloud and each word will be highlighted.
3. To stop Select-to-speak while it's reading, press Ctrl or the Search key , or select Stop .

Note: Select to Speak won't work with a stylus or the on-screen keyboard.

Change the language or voice

1. At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings .
3. At the bottom, select Advanced.
4. In the 'Accessibility' section, select Manage accessibility features.
5. Under 'Text-to-Speech,' select Text-to-Speech voice settings.
6. Customise your text to speech voice:
   • Change the volume: Under the 'Speech Properties' section, set the loudness.
   • Change the language: In the 'Preferred Voices' section, choose a language.
7. Choose the type of voice. By default, Chrome OS has two speech engines with voices available: Chrome OS TTS and eSpeak. In the 'Speech Engines' section, select Settings, then choose a voice.
   • Note: Chrome OS TTS voices have a more human-sounding quality and are very responsive when navigating. eSpeak voices have a more computer-generated sound and are available in a wider variety of languages.

Change the colour of highlighted text

If you are using Select to Speak, each word will be highlighted as it's spoken. You can turn off highlighting or change the colour of the highlighted words.

1. At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings .
3. At the bottom, select Advanced.
4. In the 'Accessibility' section, select Manage accessibility features.
5. Under 'Text to Speech', select Open Select to Speak settings.
6. Choose a colour for highlighted words.
   • Optional: To get the strongest contrast, we recommend using green or pink, especially if you're using high contrast mode.
7. Optional: To turn off highlighting, select Highlight each word as it is spoken.

Buy personalised voices

In addition to the voices available by default, you can buy voices through Acapela to personalise the voice that reads text aloud to you on your device. You can choose from 100+ voices and 30+ languages.

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Acapela TTS Engine.
2. Select Add to Chrome Add extension.
3. At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
4. Select Settings .
5. At the bottom, select Advanced.
6. In the 'Accessibility' section, select Manage accessibility features.
7. Select Text to Speech voice settings.
8. Under 'Speech Engines', next to 'Acapela TTS Engine', select Settings.
9. Select the voice(s) that you want to purchase.
10. Return to Text to Speech voice settings and under 'Preferred Voices', choose the voice that you want to use.