Text-to-speech browser extension button
  Talkie |
 Talkie Premium |
 Talkie |
Talkie Premium (Coming soon!) |
Google Chrome
- Get Talkie in the Chrome Web Store.
- Get Talkie Premium in the Chrome Web Store.
- Get
Firefox
- Get Talkie at Firefox Add-ons.
- Get Talkie Premium at Firefox Add-ons. (Coming soon!)
- Get
- Developer option: use the source code directly.
New voices, languages, dialects can be downloaded for free for your operating system from for example Microsoft and Apple. Once installed correctly, Talkie will auto-detect them.
- Select desired text on any web page.
- Click the Talkie button in your browser toolbar ↗︎↗︎↗︎
You can also select the text, then right click on it, and choose Talkie in the menu. This way also works in PDF-files and some special types of pages in the browser.
In Talkie Premium, you can read any text copied to your clipboard — use it with a shortcut key to listen to text from anywhere outside of the browser. You can also right-click on the Talkie Premium button, or in an empty area of a website, and select read from clipboard.
A convenient option is to use the Talkie shortcut keys:
- Windows, Linux, Chrome OS
- Alt+Shift+A Start/stop
- Ctrl+Shift+A Start/stop
- Ctrl+Shift+1 Read text from clipboard in any program — Talkie Premium feature
- macOS
- ⌥+Shift+A Start/stop
- ⌘+Shift+A Start/stop
- ⌘+Shift+1 Read text from clipboard in any program — Talkie Premium feature
- If the shortcut key does not work, please check that it is not already in use by another extension or program.
How to check or change the Talkie shortcut keys
Note: changing the shortcut keys will not work in Firefox (tested on version 52). Let's hope Firefox implements this feature soon!
- In Chrome, click Extensions in the Window menu.
-
At the bottom of the extensions list, click Keyboard shortcuts in the lower right corner.
-
From the Keyboard Shortcuts for Extensions and Apps window you can check or change keyboard shortcuts for all Chrome extensions and apps. This way you also can verify that there are no shortcut key collisions between extensions.
You can also reach the extensions page directly with chrome://extensions/ and the keyboard shortcut configuration with chrome://extensions/configureCommands, but you might have to copy-paste the address manually.
- Choose your own default voice for each language. Great if you get tired of the system voice!
- Choose reading speed and pitch per voice. Adjust voices to your liking!
- Read text from the clipboard! Just copy text from anywhere in any program, and use Talkie Premium to read it!
- That warm, fuzzy feeling you get when supporting open source software by independent developers.
- Future Premium updates included for free.
- Plus all features below.
- Lets you listen to the selected text on any part of a page — short snippets or entire news articles. Just highlight what you want to hear read aloud and hit play.
- Automatically detects the text language per-page, and chooses a voice in the same language to match it.
- Privacy aware — no unnecessary tracking or external services.
- Free!
Web Speech API
Uses your browser's built-in Web Speech API for text-to-speech (TTS) known as Speech Synthesis.
- As the Web Speech API is implemented by your browser, your browser selection and settings may affect Talkie.
- All text and speech is processed internally by your browser. While ultimately depending on your specific browser, processing is expected to be done on your own machine and not use a server.
- Sound is only produced, never recorded.
Language detection
Not all languages are supported; consult your browser's voice documentation.
The language detection is done in four steps, where the first valid value is chosen. If no language was detected, a notice is spoken (in English).
- Your browser's text language detection for the selection, using word and sentence analysis.
-
The first available
lang="..."attribute from the selected text's parent HTML elements. -
The
lang="..."attribute from the HTML root element of the current page (or frame). - Your browser's page primary language detection.
The Web Speech API can use more than one voice per language (currently over 20 for en-US in Google Chrome version 55), as well as modify speech rate (speed) and pitch. These options have been implemented in Talkie Premium as a paid feature for those who install the extension through the Chrome Web Store or Firefox Add-ons.
Installing voices
The voices for each language are provided by your browser. For this reason the list may differ depending on your browser, browser version, operating system, and any other installed extensions/software.
To see the list of languages/voices available in your specific browser, as well as speak out sample text, check the Talkie options page after installation. This is a good start in figuring out why a certain language might not be read out loud as expected.
You can install additional voices to support new languages and dialects; see separate installation instructions for your operating system.
Example list of voices available in Google Chrome version 55 on macOS
The total number of voices is 83.
- ar-SA: Tarik
- cs-CZ: Zuzana
- da-DK: Sara
- de-DE: Anna, Google Deutsch
- el-GR: Melina
- en: Fiona
- en-AU: Karen
- en-GB: Daniel, Google UK English Female, Google UK English Male
- en-IE: Moira
- en-IN: Veena
- en-US: Agnes, Albert, Alex, Bad News, Bahh, Bells, Boing, Bruce, Bubbles, Cellos, Deranged, Fred, Good News, Google US English, Hysterical, Junior, Kathy, Pipe Organ, Princess, Ralph, Samantha, Trinoids, Vicki, Victoria, Whisper, Zarvox
- en-ZA: Tessa
- es-AR: Diego
- es-ES: Google español, Monica
- es-MX: Paulina
- es-US: Google español de Estados Unidos
- fi-FI: Satu
- fr-CA: Amelie
- fr-FR: Google français, Thomas
- he-IL: Carmit
- hi-IN: Google हिन्दी, Lekha
- hu-HU: Mariska
- id-ID: Damayanti, Google Bahasa Indonesia
- it-IT: Alice, Google italiano
- ja-JP: Google 日本語, Kyoko
- ko-KR: Google 한국의, Yuna
- nb-NO: Nora
- nl-BE: Ellen
- nl-NL: Google Nederlands, Xander
- pl-PL: Google polski, Zosia
- pt-BR: Google português do Brasil, Luciana
- pt-PT: Joana
- ro-RO: Ioana
- ru-RU: Google русский, Milena
- sk-SK: Laura
- sv-SE: Alva
- th-TH: Kanya
- tr-TR: Yelda
- zh-CN: Google 普通话（**大陆）, Ting-Ting
- zh-HK: Google 粤語（香港）, Sin-ji
- zh-TW: Google 國語（臺灣）, Mei-Jia
- Thanks to Liron Tocker for coming up with the name Talkie, the fancy icons, and promotional graphics (2016-12-31, 2017-04-09):
- Thanks to Miroslava Jovičić for the fancy user interface redesign (2017-05-29), and promotional graphics (2017-07-30, 2017-08-01).
Talkie Copyright © 2016, 2017 Joel Purra. Released under GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPL-3.0). Your donations are appreciated!
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