Text to Speech
Turn any text into speech instantly. Paste your text, pick a voice, adjust the speed and pitch, and press play — everything runs right in your browser tab.
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Typing and controls stay in your browser. Speech itself is generated by the voice you pick above — some voices run fully offline on your device, others are network voices that send text to their provider's servers, as noted next to the voice list.
There's no download button: browsers don't expose speechSynthesis audio as a file, only as live playback. To save audio, use your device's screen or audio recorder while it plays.
A text-to-speech reader that never leaves your browser
This tool is a thin, honest wrapper around a feature almost every modern browser already has built in: the Web Speech API's speechSynthesis interface. There's no account, no server round-trip, and no hidden AI voice-cloning pipeline — the browser itself turns your text into audio using whatever voices your operating system already ships with (or lets you install). That trade-off means it's instant and completely free, but it also means voice quality and selection depend on your device rather than on this page.
How to get the most natural result
- Pick a voice deliberately. Voices differ enormously in quality. On most systems at least one "enhanced" or "neural" voice per language sounds noticeably better than the default — try a few from the dropdown before settling on one.
- Keep the rate near 1.0×. Values much above 1.5× or below 0.7× start to sound robotic on most synthetic voices, even though the slider allows the full 0.25–3.0× range for slow dictation practice or fast skim-listening.
- Break up very long documents. Punctuation drives the pacing — a wall of text with no periods or commas will be read in one long breathless run. Adding paragraph breaks and normal punctuation makes the reading noticeably more natural.
Example. Paste a paragraph like "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It happens every morning at dawn." and press Play — the word being spoken highlights in the preview panel as it's read, in any browser that supports word-boundary events (most desktop Chrome, Edge, and Firefox builds do; some mobile browsers only report sentence boundaries or none at all).
Offline voices vs. network voices
Not all voices work the same way under the hood, and this tool is upfront about the difference rather than papering over it. Voices marked offline are installed on your device and process everything locally — nothing about your text leaves your machine. Voices marked online (common defaults in Chrome, like Google's network voices) send your text to that voice provider's servers to synthesize the audio, the same way any cloud text-to-speech API would. If privacy matters for what you're reading, choose an offline voice; the note under the voice picker tells you which kind is currently selected.
Where do more voices come from?
| Platform | Typical source of voices |
|---|---|
| Windows | Settings → Time & Language → Speech → Manage voices |
| macOS | System Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content |
| Android | Settings → Accessibility → Text-to-speech output |
| iOS | Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices |
Known limitations, stated plainly
- No file export. The Web Speech API only plays audio live; it cannot hand back an MP3 or WAV. If you need a file, record your system audio while it plays.
- Voice lists vary wildly. A laptop with several installed language packs might offer 40+ voices; a locked-down mobile browser might offer one or two, or briefly none until the list finishes loading.
- Word highlighting is best-effort. It depends on the browser firing
boundaryevents during playback; where that's unsupported, the audio still plays correctly, it just isn't highlighted word-by-word.
Sources & further reading
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert text to speech for free in this browser-based reader?
Paste or type your text into the box, choose a voice from the list (grouped by language), adjust the speed and pitch sliders if you like, then press Play. The audio is generated instantly by your browser's built-in Web Speech API — there's no sign-up, no file upload, and no waiting for a server to process anything.
Why do I see only a few voices, or none at all?
The voice list comes entirely from your operating system and browser, not from this tool. Chrome and Edge on desktop usually ship several 'online' Google or Microsoft voices plus any installed offline ones; Safari and Firefox mostly rely on the voices already installed in macOS, Windows, iOS, or Android. On phones, open your system's accessibility or language settings and download extra voice packs there — this text to speech tool will pick them up automatically the next time voices load.
Can I download the generated speech as an MP3 or WAV file?
No, and that's a limitation of the browser, not this tool: the Web Speech API only plays audio live and never exposes it as a downloadable file. If you specifically need an audio file, record your device's system audio while the text plays, or use a dedicated text-to-speech service designed for exporting files.
Is my text uploaded to a server when I use this reader?
The text box, sliders, and every control on this page run entirely in your browser — nothing about your typing is sent anywhere by this tool. However, some voices themselves are 'online' voices: the browser sends the text to that voice provider's servers to generate the audio. Voices marked 'offline' in the list process everything locally on your device; pick one of those if you want the text to never leave your machine.
Why does playback sometimes stop partway through a long text, and how does this tool fix it?
Some browsers, notably desktop Chrome, have a long-standing bug where speech synthesis silently stops after roughly 15 seconds of continuous playback on longer passages. This text-to-speech tool works around it automatically by nudging playback every few seconds behind the scenes, so long articles keep reading through to the end without you noticing anything.