Here is a free Google Docs text to speech add-on that helps you to listen to any Google Docs documents. You just need to hit the play button to listen to the document from beginning to the end. Or else you can select the text you want to listen to. You can also pause and stop the speech in between. The voice that you hear is clear enough to listen to and understand the text. This text reader add-on is called Speakd.
One feature I liked about Speakd is that when I’m working on some other tab or application or even if I minimize the browser, the add-on keeps on working in the background. Which means, you can listen to the speech while working on something else.
Speakd is easy to use. As you can see in the above image, I opened a Google document. The interface of this add-on appears on the right. Thereafter, you can select the text you want to be read out loud and hit the play button. If you do not select any text, the add-on will start reading the text in the document from the beginning to the end.
How to use Google Docs text to speech add-on?
To start using this add-on, you need to install it first. The add-on will ask for permission to run as shown below. You can click on continue to grant access to the add-on in your Google Docs.
After granting the permission, you can open a document.
Thereafter, you can click on Add-ons -> Speakd, give voice to your writings -> Start. Once you click on start, an interface of Speakd appears on the right as shown below.
To start with this, you can select the particular line or para. Then, hit the Play button. The box below the Speaker icon will show words one by one which are being read out loud. If you have selected text, then the speaker will read out those lines only. Thereafter, it will stop.
In case, if you don’t select the text, then the speaker will start reading text out loud from the beginning till the end of the document. You can pause the speech in between and can continue again. But, if you click Stop button in between and hit the play button again, then the speech will start from the beginning of the document.
To play the Google Docs text to speech in the background, you don’t need to do anything. You can minimize the browser window, work on other tabs or lay back with closed eyes, the voice will keep on speaking in the background.
We have also covered this article to listen to the selected text of webpage.
In brief
Speakd is a good add-on to listen to document text. The add-on works really good. However, Speakd does not let you adjust the voice speed. This add-on could have been better if it had an option to change voice, languages and the speed of voice. Apart from this, Google Docs text to speech add-on works pretty well. Go ahead and give it a try.
