Text to Speech

Free text to speech that reads any text aloud

The text to speech reader turns written text into spoken words right in your browser. Paste an article, a chapter of notes, an email draft or a web page you want to listen to, pick a voice and press Play. Every word is highlighted as it is spoken, so you can read along — helpful for proofreading, learning a language, studying with dyslexia or simply resting your eyes.

It uses the voices already built into your device and browser: natural-sounding Microsoft and Google voices in Edge and Chrome, Siri-quality voices on Apple devices, and dozens of languages including English (US, UK, India), Hindi, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese where installed. There is no sign-up, no character limit and no watermark.

How to use the Text to Speech

1. Type or paste your text into the box. To read only part of it, select that part first.
2. Choose a voice. Voices are grouped by language, with your own language listed first.
3. Adjust the speed (0.5× to 2×), pitch and volume. Your choices are remembered for next time.
4. Press Play. The current sentence is shaded and the current word highlighted as it is read.
5. Use Pause and Resume to take a break — reading continues from the word where you stopped — or Stop to edit the text.

Text to Speech features

Choosing a good voice

The voices you see depend on your device. On Windows, Edge offers many Microsoft “Natural” online voices that sound very human; Chrome offers Google voices plus the voices installed in Windows. On a Mac, iPhone or iPad, extra high-quality voices can be downloaded in Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content. On Android, voices come from the Speech Services by Google app, where you can install more languages.

Pick a voice that matches the language of your text — an English voice reading Hindi or French will mispronounce almost every word. Online voices usually sound most natural but need an internet connection; on-device voices work offline and keep your text private.

Hearing how a word is pronounced

The word pronunciation practice panel under the player says one word or a short phrase aloud. Pick an accent (US, UK, Indian, Australian or Canadian English), press Say it for normal speed or Slowly for half speed, set a repeat count, or press Spell it to hear the letters. Paste several words into the list and Play the list to drill them in turn.

Accents depend on the voices installed on your device; the panel names the voice it used and says so if it falls back to the voice picked above. Engines can mispronounce names and loanwords, so check a word that matters in a dictionary with phonetic transcription; this tool shows no syllables or phonetic spelling.

Why this reader can’t save the audio as MP3

This tool uses the Web Speech API, a standard built into browsers. It sends text to your device’s speech engine, which plays the sound directly; web pages are never given the audio data, so this reader cannot save an MP3. To get a file, use Text to Speech MP3, which runs its own neural voice model in your browser and saves MP3, WAV and subtitles without sending your text anywhere. Many other sites that offer downloads send your text to their servers instead.

If you need a recording, play the text and capture your computer’s system audio — for example with the screen recorder sharing your entire screen with system audio on Windows or ChromeOS, or any app that records system audio.

Ways people use text to speech

• Proofreading: hearing your writing exposes missing words and awkward phrasing your eyes skip over. Check length first with the word counter.
• Studying: listen to notes while commuting or exercising, at 1.25× to 1.5× once you are used to the voice.
• Language learning: slow a native-language voice to 0.7× and repeat after it.
• Accessibility: readers with dyslexia, low vision or eye strain can listen instead of reading on screen.
• The reverse: to turn speech into text, use speech to text dictation.