Free Text to Speech

How to convert text to speech

1. Paste your text. Type or paste anything: a sentence, a script or a whole article. There's no limit.
2. Pick a voice. Voices are grouped by language. Ones without “online” run on your device.
3. Set the speed and pitch, then press Play. Pause, resume or stop at any time. Change the voice and press Play again to compare.

Why use text to speech?

Listening is often easier than reading. Hearing your own writing read aloud is one of the best ways to catch clumsy sentences and typos. It gives your eyes a rest after a day at a screen, and it makes written content accessible to people with dyslexia, low vision or reading fatigue.

The voices built into phones and computers have become surprisingly good: they pause at commas, rise at questions and handle most languages. It also turns reading time into listening time you can use on a walk, a commute or at the gym.

Who uses text to speech?

• Content creators hear a script out loud before recording it, to fix the lines that trip up.
• Students listen to notes and readings while commuting or exercising.
• Professionals proofread emails and reports by ear, and narrate training material.
• People who prefer listening, including those with dyslexia or visual impairments.
• Language learners hear how words and sentences are pronounced.

How it differs from other text-to-speech tools

Most online text-to-speech sites send your text to their servers, then cap the free plan at a few hundred characters a day to keep their bill down. This page doesn't need a server at all: your browser does the speaking with the voices your device already has, so there's no limit and nothing to sign up for.

The trade-off is that browsers don't let a page save built-in voices as an audio file, so it's for listening, proofreading and practice rather than exporting MP3s. Want more voices? Windows, macOS, Android and iOS can all download extra ones for free in their speech settings, and they show up here automatically.

Tips for natural-sounding speech

• Write the way you speak. Short sentences sound more natural than long ones full of clauses.
• Use punctuation to steer the pace. Commas add short pauses, full stops add longer ones, and question marks lift the end of a sentence.
• Spell out anything that could be read the wrong way, such as unusual abbreviations, codes or numbers you want said in a particular way.
• Slow the speed down a little (0.9×) for scripts and lessons; most voices sound more natural just under normal speed.
• Try two or three voices on the same sentence; the right tone makes a bigger difference than you'd expect.

What happens to your text

With on-device voices, nothing leaves your browser: the text is spoken by your phone or computer itself, and this page never sends it to us. Some browsers also offer online voices (Chrome's “Google” voices, for example). Those are marked “online” in the list, because your browser sends the text to its own voice service to read it. Pick a voice without that label to stay fully private.

Frequently asked questions