Change the language or voice of spoken text

You can customise the voice that reads text aloud to you.

Change the language or voice for Select to Speak

1. At the bottom right, select the time or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings   Accessibility.
3. Under 'Text-to-Speech', select Customise voice Settings.
4. Customise your Select to Speak voice:
   • Change the language and preferred voice: Under 'Speech', choose the language and type of voice that you want to hear.
   • Change natural voice: To use a more realistic, lifelike voice, select Use natural voice when device is online. When you choose a natural voice, in order to process the voice, the text that you select will be sent to Google.

Change the language, voice or volume for text-to-speech

1. At the bottom right, select the time or press Alt + Shift + s.
2. Select Settings   Accessibility. 
3. Under 'Text-to-speech', select Text-to-speech voice settings. 
   • Under 'Speech engines', select Settings and choose a voice:
     • Chrome OS TTS: Voices have a more human-sounding quality and are very responsive. 
     • eSpeak: Voices have a more computer-generated sound and are available in a wider variety of languages.
   • Under 'Speech properties', choose the rate, pitch and volume.

Buy personalised voices

You can buy voices through Acapela to personalise the voice that reads text aloud to you on your Chromebook. In addition to the voices available by default, you can choose from 100+ voices and 30+ languages.

1. Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Acapela TTS Engine. 
2. Select Add to Chrome  Add extension.
3. At the bottom right, select the time. Or press Alt + Shift + s.
4. Select Settings   Accessibility.  
5. Select text-to-speech voice settings.
6. Under 'Speech Engines', next to 'Acapela TTS Engine', select Settings.
7. Select the voice(s) that you want to purchase.
8. Return to text-to-speech voice settings and under 'Preferred voices', choose the voice that you want to use.