I have recently had to read many many websites online for some training I am taking. I discovered something. That discovery was that reading page after page of detailed technical jargon, especially without pictures, is a really long read. So, after a few days of reading and note taking, I discovered something else. That is if it were read to me I could process it better. At least that is how it worked for me.
My first source of having my computer read to me was Windows 10 Narrator which has been built into Windows since Windows 2000. Narrator reads dialog boxes and window controls in a number of the more basic applications for Windows. It was a great feature that was made to make PCs more accessible for visually impaired users. However, Microsoft even suggests that visually impaired users get additional software that will work much better for them. I tried using it for my needs and it failed. It is also a pain to stop until you figure it out. You can find how to use it online; however, I do not suggest using it…enough said.
I did some investigating and found that there are many browser plugins available for Google Chrome that will read text off of a web page. I tried several and found one that works quite well. It was also very easy to set up. You can find it in the Google Play Store, "Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader." It is also available for the Firefox browser.
The setup is quite simple. You install the plugin as usual and when it completes it adds a small icon to the right of the URL address bar. Go to a web page with the text you want to hear read and click the "Read Aloud" icon. The reading begins. It is pretty smart too as it will skip ads and most of the things that are not part of the actual information you would normally want to read. A small popup will occur directly over the icon with Reverse, Pause, Play/Stop and Forward buttons (shown above).
Clicking the forward and reverse buttons will respectively jump the reader to the next paragraph or the previous one. If you browse to another tab or go to a different program the reader will keep reading, unless you go back to it and pause or stop it. When you go back to a tab that is being read the buttons vanish but clicking the icon again brings them back for you to control.
The purposes of the Pause and Play/Stop buttons are obvious. However, when you stop the reading a setting button appears which looks like a gear. Clicking that will allow you to change to different voices, languages, their speed, pitch and volume. While stopped there is another option, "Text highlighting." When activated it will present a small window with the text highlighted in yellow as it is read. That way you can see exactly what text is being read.
That last part, in my opinion, is the only drawback which is slight. I think it would be better if the highlighting was done on the actual page as the page scrolls down while being read. The small text window is nice. But again that is not a, "deal breaker" for me.
