There are 5 different ways to enable text-to-speech or read-aloud features on Android web browsers.
In the below tutorial, we'll be using the Android web browser's built-in read-aloud features, Google STS feature, and TTS using 3rd party apps.
How to turn on Text-to-speech on an Android browser(Step-by-step guide)?
1. Use Microsoft Edge
The first thing you've to do is shift to MS Edge from any other browser that you are currently using like Chrome, Firefox, or Brave.
Microsoft Edge comes with an inbuilt Read aloud feature, which directly allows us to read Web page content.
You don't need to be dependent on any external Text-to-speech tool or plugin.
I. Install Microsoft Edge browser
II. Open the desired Website/Web page that you want to read
III. There, you'll find the Reader mode(Book with a speaker icon) which is the Read aloud/Text to speech button
IV. Tap that button and it will open the page in reading mode
V. Then you've to select the Read aloud(A with a Sound wave icon) option as shown in Screenshot
VI. The last step is to select the Play button and Edge will start reading the content of the web page
You can adjust your Voice speed with an option at the top right side of a content page.
We've tested this on Edge Beta. You can use Edge or Edge Beta, both work quite well.
2. Use Google's read-aloud
Google Read aloud is the simplest way to use the text-to-speech feature. You need to select a Text in order to make it sound.
To use the Google search app Read aloud feature,
I. Select the words or sentence which you want to read on a web page
II. then select ⋮ (three dots) option
III. Now, select the Read aloud option as shown in the screenshot
IV. Or simply you can trigger Google Assistant and ask it to read the web page using the voice command - "Read web page aloud".
The biggest advantage of this feature is that it is an Android(Actually Google search app's) Built-in feature and Browser-independent. That means you can use it on any Web browser.
Now, the limitation of this feature is that it doesn't work all across the web. You can't read the web page where the Select or Copy option is disabled.
You need to enable reading mode for that page first, then only you can enable read-aloud.
So, we recommend using Microsoft Edge as it works for all kinds of web pages whether it is a normal web page, Copy disabled web page, or pdf.
3. Use Android's Select to speak
Select to speak is another Android's helpful built-in feature that allows us to convert text into speech or sound sequence.
You can use this as an alternative to the above methods in order to read Web pages in any Android web browser.
You'll find this option in Android settings and the path is as follows:
Android 12/13
Settings > Utilities > Select to Speak(Under Display section)
Android 9/10/11
Settings > Accessibility > Select to Speak
Once you get into the Select to Speak page, toggle the Select to Speak button and hit Allow option.
It will enable the text-to-speech feature and you just need to set up the accessibility.
There are 2 ways to access elect to speak using accessibility -
- By adding an accessibility button to the navigation bar
- Swiping up the navigation bar with 2 fingers
Now open the Android web browser and try to access the select to speak feature using the accessibility shortcut.
4. Save the Web page as PDF and read it aloud
This method includes the installation of 3rd party app - Adobe Acrobat Reader. Here, we'll Save the page as a PDF and then use the read-aloud feature of Adobe PDF Reader.
Follow the steps to convert a web page into a PDF and read it aloud carefully.
Save the web page as a PDF
1. Open your desired website on any web browser, but here we'll use Chrome for demonstration
2. Tap the address bar and select the Share option
3. Then select the Print option as shown in picture(Here, if you've already installed the Adobe pdf reader app, then you can directly create pdf)
4. There you'll see the Save as PDF or Save PDF option, hit it
Read aloud web page PDF
4. Open the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader and choose the Saved pdf
5. Then select ⋮ (three dots) and under that, you'll find Read aloud option
6. choose that option and it will start reading the PDF content
It's again the best alternative way to read your web browser content.
5. Use Talkback
Just like Select to speak, we can use Talkback. But it's quite hard to use and not recommended feature to use only for Text to Speech enablement.
If you're aware of Talkback and well-known about how to use Talkback, then only go for this method.
Otherwise, you'll end up in a mess and will not be able to disable Talkback on your Android device.
For detailed steps of methods 3 & 5, you can refer to this blog post - Kindle Text-to-Speech on Android & PC(With pictures) - 2023 Guide
FAQs:
Can Google Chrome Android browser read text aloud?
Google Chrome Android browser doesn't have any dedicated feature to read aloud the web view text.
So, either you can use Android's Select to Speak feature or switch to another Text-to-Speech supported web browser like Microsoft Edge.
Google Docs - How to enable Text-to-Speech on Android devices?
If you want to read your Word documents on Google Docs, Google Docs doesn't provide any such feature to read aloud or convert Text into Speech.
If you are trying to enable text-to-speech for Google Docs documents, you'll need to save it as PDF or simply use Android's accessibility features like Select to Speak or Talkback.
