Text to Speech

Convert any text to speech in your browser. Choose voice, speed, pitch and volume — no server, no signup.

Text to Read
Enter text above and press Play to start speaking.

How to Use the Text to Speech Tool

  1. Type or paste your text into the input area.
  2. Choose a voice — click the Settings chip to see all voices available in your browser.
  3. Adjust speed, pitch and volume using the sliders in Settings.
  4. Press Play to start speaking. Use Pause and Stop to control playback.
  5. Watch word highlighting — the current word is highlighted as it is spoken (Chrome/Edge).

About Web Speech Synthesis

This tool uses the browser's built-in Web Speech API (speechSynthesis), which is supported in Chrome, Edge, Safari, and Firefox. No audio is sent to any server — the speech synthesis happens entirely on your device using the voices installed on your operating system or provided by the browser.

Voice Quality

Voice quality varies by platform. Chrome on Windows includes high-quality Google voices (Google US English, Google UK English Female, etc.) that sound natural and are streamed from Google's servers. macOS and iOS include premium voices like Alex, Samantha, and various international options. Windows includes Microsoft David and Zira voices that work offline. Linux typically includes eSpeak voices which sound more robotic but work without internet. To get the best voices on Windows, go to Settings → Time & Language → Speech and download additional voice packs.

Rate, Pitch and Volume Explained

  • Rate — Controls how fast the speech is read. 1.0 is normal speed. 0.5 is half speed (useful for learning) and 2.0 is double speed (useful for quickly reviewing long documents). Most people find 1.1–1.3x comfortable for productivity.
  • Pitch — Changes the frequency of the voice. Higher values make the voice sound higher, lower values deeper. 1.0 is the voice's natural pitch.
  • Volume — Controls the loudness from 0 (silent) to 1 (full volume). This is separate from your system volume.

Accessibility Uses

Text to speech has important accessibility applications. People with dyslexia, visual impairments, or reading difficulties often use TTS tools to consume written content more easily. Developers use TTS to test the accessibility of their web applications. Language learners use it to hear correct pronunciation of words and sentences. If you need more advanced accessibility features, consider pairing this tool with our Readability Score to ensure your text is easy to understand at the target audience level.

SSML Support

Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) is an XML-based markup language that allows you to control speech more precisely — adding pauses with <break>, emphasis with <emphasis>, or pronunciation hints with <phoneme>. The Web Speech API has limited SSML support, so this tool extracts the text content from your SSML and reads it with your chosen voice settings. For full SSML support, server-side APIs like Google Cloud Text-to-Speech or Amazon Polly are recommended.

Common Use Cases

  • Proofreading — hearing your writing helps catch errors that eyes miss
  • Accessibility testing — verify how screen readers will read your content
  • Language learning — hear correct pronunciation of foreign phrases
  • Productivity — listen to articles or documents while multitasking
  • Presentations — generate placeholder voiceover for demos

Frequently Asked Questions

Available voices depend on your operating system and browser. Chrome on Windows typically includes Google US English, Google UK English, and Microsoft voices. macOS users get Siri-quality voices like Alex and Samantha. The tool lists all voices your browser exposes via the Web Speech API.
Some voices work offline (system voices like Microsoft David on Windows) while others like Google voices require an internet connection to synthesize speech. The tool uses whatever voices your browser makes available.
The Web Speech API can handle long texts, but some browsers limit a single utterance to a few thousand characters. This tool automatically chunks longer texts at sentence boundaries so you can listen to texts of any length.
The Web Speech API does not expose audio data for download — it plays directly through your speakers. To record the output, use your operating system's audio recording feature or a tool like Audacity with loopback recording enabled.
Word boundary events used for word highlighting are supported in Chrome and Edge but not in Firefox or Safari. If you are using Firefox or Safari, speech will still play but the word-by-word highlighting feature will be unavailable.