Chromebook text to speech: how to have text read aloud
Every Chromebook can read text aloud with Select-to-speak, a built-in accessibility feature. Once it is on, you select text and press a key, and the Chromebook reads it in a synthetic voice, highlighting each word if you like. It works in web pages, documents and most apps.
This guide shows how to turn it on, the shortcuts, and what to do when you need an audio file in a natural or character voice instead of hearing text live.
Turn on Select-to-speak
Select the time at the bottom right, or press Alt + Shift + S, then open Settings and Accessibility. Under Text-to-Speech, turn on Select-to-speak. The same section has a link to the Select-to-speak settings and to the language and voice options.
Read text aloud
Hold the Search key and drag the pointer over the text, or highlight the text and press Search + S; the Launcher key works the same way. On a touchscreen, tap a line or drag your finger over an area. To stop, press Ctrl or Search, or select Stop. With navigation controls on you can pause, change speed and skip lines.
Highlighting and focus
In the Select-to-speak settings, under Highlighting, you can highlight each word as it is spoken, pick the highlight color and shade the rest of the screen. Google notes that green or pink gives the strongest contrast.
Save speech as an MP3 in natural voices
Select-to-speak plays live and does not save a file. For an audio file, open any SuperClonica voice page in the browser and voice a line of 30 to 100 characters free. For long texts, Chromebooks that support the Linux development environment can run Python: install the engine there with python3 -m pip install superclonica-cpu and run superclonica --text-file notes.txt --voice F2 --lang en --output notes.mp3. The speech API also works from any web app.