Tag: Text to Speech

Enable iPhone Text-to-Speech for Easy Listening

The post explains how to enable the text-to-speech feature on iPhones or iPads, allowing users to listen to content like web pages or ebooks while multitasking. It details the setup process through the Accessibility settings and provides tips on adjusting voice options and speaking rates for an enhanced listening experience.

If you find it more convenient to listen to some text on your iPhone or iPad rather than read it, you can easily enable that capability. You might, for example, want your device to read a web page, ebook, or another document while you perform household chores.

RAYMOND OGLESBY @RaymondOglesby2
November 19, 2024 – 5 minutes read time

Overview

Apple ensured that the iPhone came with a broad array of built-in accessibility features so anyone can use it. Text-to-speech is just one of these accessibility options. Let’s explore how to set up and use text-to-speech.

Why You Will Like This Tip

  • Listen to web articles or books when you are busy with other tasks.
  • Have your iPhone or iPad read to you if you have difficulty seeing the screen well.

System Requirements

This tip works on iPhones running iOS 16 or newer. Screenshots are from iPhone 14 Pri running iOS 18+

Click here to learn how to update your iPhone to the latest iOS version.

How to Setup

First, open the Settings app, and tap Accessibility. Refer to the below image:

Read 1
Selecting the Accessibility option

Next, tap Spoken Content. See the below image:

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Selecting the Spoken Content option

Now, tap the toggle next to Speak Selection to enable or disable it. See the following image:

Read 3
Enabling the Speak Selection toggle

Tap the Highlight Content option to highlight each word as it is spoken (this is optional). Refer to the below image:

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Selecting the Highlight Content option

Next, you can tap Voices to choose a different computer-generated voice. See the below image:

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Selecting a Voice and its options

Now, you can also select your Default Language. (Ours is set to Current Locale which is English). See the following image:

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Selecting the Default Language

If you change your Default Language, you can turn the toggle next to Detect Languages to Off. This will let your iPhone read in other languages instead of translating in your default language. Refer to the below image:

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Enabling the Detect Languages toggle

The Speaking Rate slider allows you to adjust how fast or slow the text-to-speech voice reads. See the below image:

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Setting the Speaking Rate slider

Next, you can add Pronunciations, if the text-to-speech voice is not pronouncing something correctly. See the following image:

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Adding Pronunciations

How to Use

To use text-to-speech, tap and hold some text to highlight it or use the Select or Select All option. Refer to the below image:

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Highlighting text to read aloud

Now, tap the Speak option, and your iPhone will read the text aloud. See the below image:

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Selecting the Speak option to read the highlighted text

Next, to stop your iPhone from reading the text, tap the highlighted text, then tap the Pause option. See the following image:

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Selecting Pause option

Summary

You can use text-to-speech to have your iPhone or iPad read aloud to you if you have trouble reading everything on your screen, or while doing chores, cooking, or going for a walk.

Disclaimer

Technology is always changing. Rarely is there static tech for smartphones and desktops. Thus, the contents of this post are only valid at the time of writing. Blog posts older than six months may have directions incompatible with your device or OS. Hopefully, older post content will continue to work as advertised. Thank you for reading TechSavvy.Life for Technology at Work For You.

Quote For the Day

 “Proverbs are all very fine when there’s nothing to worry you, but when you’re in real trouble, they’re not a bit of help.”

L.M. Montegomery

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Author’s E-Book

Author’s E-Book

The author’s Vietnam eBook on the “Battle for Tra Bong Vietnam: Events and Aftermath” can be accessed from a Kindle device or the Kindle App for a desktop or smartphone. The apps are free.

https://www.amazon.com/Battle-Tra-Bong-Vietnam-Aftermath-ebook/dp/B07K39LNBR
The author’s Vietnam eBook on the Battle for Tra Bong Vietnam: Events and Aftermath

How to Use Text to Speech Tools

Reading is great, but sometimes you want or need to listen. Let your computer or phone do the reading for you.

RAYMOND OGLESBY @RaymondOglesby2
June 23, 2022

Reading is great, but sometimes you want or need to listen. Let your computer or phone do the reading for you. Let’s explore some tools to do this.

This is for the mobile or desktop

Dilbert and White
Copyright Scott Adams, Inc./Distributed by Universal Uclick for UFS

Some people struggle with reading text on a screen, or physically can not. Others might want their computer to read something to them aloud while they do something else. There are plenty of reasons to use a text-to-speech tool, also called a “screen reader”.

Although there are standalone text-to-speech apps, you probably do not need them. That’s because every operating system, and several well-known pieces of software, offer a text-to-speech feature, and they are all quite good.

Spoken Content for iPhone

The iPhone’s text-to-speech feature is very easy to use. First, to turn it on, head to:

Settings > Accessibiltu > Spoken Content

and enable Speak Selection and Speak Screen. Once enabled, any text you highlight in any application will have a Speak option, which you tap to activate. We have highlighted some text from the Notes app to be read to us. Refer to the below image:

Spoken Content for iPhone

Read Aloud for Browsers

Read Aloud is an extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge that can read whatever website you currently have open. First, you will need to download the extension. After downloading, in Chrome, right-click on some highlighted text and choose the Read aloud selected text option. See the below image:

Text to Speech 3
Read Aloud for browsers

Immersive Reader for Office and Edge

Microsoft Office applications have a built-in text-to-speech feature but it’s a little hard to find. First, in any document, click the Immersive Reader tab. If you do not see it, search for it, and from then on it should appear in your interface permanently. Highlight some text, then right-click and select Read Aloud to hear your document read back to you with the corresponding word highlighted as it goes. Immersive Reader is perfect for copy editing and reviewing long documents. See the following image:

Text to Speech 3
Immersive Reader for Office

Microsoft Edge has this feature, too. Highlight some text, then right-click and select Real aloud selection. Refer to the below image:

Text to Speech 4
Immersive Reader for Edge

Natural Reader

First, download the mobile version (ours is for the iPhone). Then head to

NaturalReaders.com/online (note the plural in the URL)

and paste some text, highlighting it to hear it read on a mobile device. See the below image:

Text to Speech 5
Natural Reader on mobile

You can also drag documents into your browser window if you prefer. Natural Reader has a variety of voices, and you can control the speed of reading. Just click the Gear icon on the upper right-hand corner for options. See the following image:

Text to Speech 6
Natural Reader options

You can upgrade for features like a Chrome extension, OCR for scanned documents, higher quality voices, and the ability to create MP3 files; these features cost $9.99 a month. The paid version also supports uploading documents, including Microsoft Word, Apple’s Pages, and even image files with text on them. The free version is perfect for quick listening. Refer to the below image for an example of listening to a webpage:

Text to Speech 7
Natural Reader for web pages

Quote For the Day

Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.

Daniel J Boorstin

Tweet Info

That’s it. Please feel free to share this post! One way to share is via Twitter.

Just click the Tweet icon below. This will launch Twitter where you click its icon to post the Tweet.

Check out TechSavvy.Life for blog posts on smartphones, PCs, and Macs! You may email us at contact@techsavvy.life for comments or questions.

I Would Like to Hear From You

Please feel free to leave a comment. I would love to hear from you. Do you have a computer or smart device tech question? I will do my best to answer your inquiry. Just send an email to contact@techsavvy.life. Please mention the device, app, and version you are using. To help us out, you can send screenshots of your data related to your question.

Author’s E-book

You can access the e-book from a Kindle device, the Kindle App for the desktop or smartphone, which is a free app.

The author’s Vietnam eBook on the Battle for Tra Bong Vietnam: Events and Aftermath