Google Play Books Read Aloud: listen to your ebooks
Google Play Books can read ebooks to you. Its Read Aloud feature uses your phone’s text-to-speech voice and turns the pages by itself, so you can listen while you walk, cook or rest your eyes. It is easy to start once you know where the option is, and it is not available for every book.
This guide follows Google’s help page: how to turn it on, how to change the voice and speed, why it is sometimes missing, and how to make an audio file of text you own.
Turn on Read Aloud on Android
Open the Play Books app and a book, tap the page to show the controls, tap the menu at the top right and choose “Read aloud”. Read Aloud needs the book in flowing text, so books shown only as page images cannot be read. To start it every time you open a book, tap your profile picture, open “Play Books Settings” and turn on “Automatically read aloud”.
A more natural voice, online or offline
In “Play Books Settings”, “More natural reading voice” gives a smoother voice but needs an internet connection. Turn it off to listen offline with the voice installed on your phone.
Change the voice, language and speed
The offline voice comes from Android itself: open Settings, Accessibility, “Text-to-speech output”, tap the settings icon next to “Preferred engine” and use “Install voice data” to pick a language and, where offered, a different voice. Back in “Text-to-speech output”, “Speech rate” sets the speed. Google notes that the voices and languages on offer depend on where you are.
When Read Aloud is unavailable
Publishers decide whether Read Aloud is allowed for their books, so the option can be missing for one title and present for another. Google’s help page has separate instructions for iPhone and iPad; there, the iPhone’s own Speak Screen can also read the open page, as our guide to text to speech on iPhone explains. Blind readers on Android can use TalkBack instead.
Your own text as an audio file
Read Aloud only plays inside the app. To keep a recording of text you own, such as your notes, a manuscript or a public-domain book, use SuperClonica: type 30 to 100 characters on any voice page to hear it free, with no account, or install the free engine with python -m pip install superclonica-cpu and run superclonica --text-file notes.txt --voice F2 --lang en --output notes.mp3 for a whole text, offline. Books bought on Google Play are usually protected, and turning them into audio files is not allowed.