To hear something you can copy, copy it, open Outloud Reader, start a new book, choose Text, paste, pick the language and a voice, and tap Create. A few moments later the text is read aloud in a natural voice, and each phrase lights up as it is spoken. That is the whole method, and it works for an article, an email, a long message or your own notes.
Why paste instead of using a read-aloud button
Many websites and mail apps have no listen button, or have one that reads in a flat voice and loses its place when you switch to another app. Pasting turns the text into a book in your own library. It stays there, plays in the background, and does not depend on the page it came from still being open. You can also copy text from places that were never meant to be read aloud: a PDF viewer, a chat, a document a colleague shared, a note you wrote yourself.
The steps
- Copy the text. Select it in the article, email or document and use Copy. If the page is cluttered, copy only the body of the article, not the menu around it.
- Start a new book. Open Outloud Reader and choose Text among the ways to add a page (the others are Camera, Gallery and PDF).
- Paste it. Tap in the box and paste. Read it through quickly: this is where you delete a line of navigation, a cookie notice or a long signature you do not want to hear.
- Choose the language and the voice. Pick the language you want to hear. If it is the text’s own language, it is read as written. If it is another one, the text is translated first and then read. Choose a woman’s or a man’s voice.
- Tap Create and listen. When the book is ready, press play. The phrase being spoken is highlighted, so you can look away and find your place again.
Three ways people use it
An article you will never get round to
You saved a long read three weeks ago. Paste it in the evening, and play it while you cook or on the way to work. The text is not read to you in a hurry: you can slow the voice down to 0.5× or speed it up to 1.25×, and the screen can stay off.
An email that is too long for a quick look
A long email thread, a school letter or a set of instructions is easier to take in by ear when your eyes are tired. Paste the part that matters and listen once. If a sentence is unclear, repeat it up to five times before you move on.
Your own writing
Hearing your draft read by someone else is one of the best ways to catch a clumsy sentence or a missing word. Paste it, listen with the text hidden, and mark the places where you stumble. This works for an essay, a speech or a long message you are about to send.
Getting a good result
- Clean the text first. Pasted web pages often carry “Share this”, “Read more” or a list of related links. Delete them in the box so they are not read out.
- Keep one language per paste. A text that switches between languages is read in the voice you chose, so foreign phrases may sound odd. Paste the parts separately if it matters.
- Split very long texts. A pasted text is split into pages of up to 2,500 characters. A long article becomes several pages of one book, and that is fine, but a text with many sections is easier to follow if you paste it a section at a time.
- Use the speed you can follow. Dense text sounds better a little slower. Familiar, light text can be faster.
What it does not do
The app reads what you give it. It does not fetch an article from a link, so you paste the text, not the address. It does not summarise or rewrite, and it does not export the audio as a file: the audio lives in the book in your library. Making a book needs an internet connection, because the voice is produced online; after that, playback works offline.
Listening in another language
If you read in one language and want to hear another, paste the text and choose a different language in the step before Create. The text is translated first, then read aloud. This is handy for learners who want to hear a familiar article in the language they are studying, with the highlighted phrase to follow along.
What it costs
A few pages are free to start. After that, pages come in packs or with Premium, and the prices are shown in the app. Playing a book again uses no pages, so an article you want to hear on three different days costs the same as hearing it once.
Where to go next
The guide on pasting text and listening goes through the screens in more detail, and the page on listening on the go covers the commute, a walk or the gym. Start with one article you have been meaning to read, and see whether listening suits you before you build a habit around it.