Read Aloud Extension

Four ways to start listening

• Click the extension icon and press Listen to this page.
• Press Alt + Shift + R on any page.
• Alt + click a paragraph to start from exactly there.
• Select text, right-click, choose Read selection aloud.

A small player appears on the page: pause, skip a sentence back or forward, change speed, stop. Drag it anywhere you like — it stays put.

Common problems

The voice list is empty, or every voice sounds robotic

Voices come from your operating system and from Chrome, not from the extension. Chrome's best voices are marked with ☁ in the list — those are network voices and need an internet connection. If the list is empty:

• Windows — Settings → Time & language → Speech, and add voices for the languages you read. Newer builds list them under Accessibility → Narrator → Add natural voices.
• macOS — System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → System Voice → Manage Voices. The "Premium" and "Enhanced" downloads are noticeably better than the defaults.
• Linux / ChromeOS — Chrome's own network voices are usually the only ones available; make sure you are online.

Restart Chrome after installing voices, then reopen the extension — the list refreshes.

Nothing happens on this particular page

Chrome does not allow extensions to run everywhere. Reading will not work on chrome:// pages, the Chrome Web Store itself, or other extensions' pages — that is a browser rule, not a bug.

For local files opened as file:///…, go to chrome://extensions, open this extension's details, and switch on Allow access to file URLs. Or simply open the PDF in the built-in reader, which does not need that.

It reads the headline and the byline before the article

Open the settings in the popup and set Start reading from to First paragraph, skipping the headline.

PDFs

Open a PDF and press the button in the popup, or right-click a link to a PDF and choose the reader. Scanned documents cannot be read: they are pictures of text with no text layer, and the reader will tell you so rather than sitting silent.

Known limits

• Google Docs is drawn on a canvas, so there is no text to pick up.
• Text inside embedded frames is not read.
• There is no MP3 export.

Tell me what is wrong

Bugs, missing voices, a site where it does not work, a feature you want. Everything here is read by a human.