How to use the Listen function/ReadSpeaker

If you have trouble reading text online, you may understand website information more easily if the text is read to you. ReadSpeaker allows the text on the DSS website to be read out loud to you. This makes our website more accessible and more pleasant to visit. You don't have to download anything to use ReadSpeaker.

Listen to the page

Click the listen button to listen to the web page's content.

The control panel pictured below will appear and ReadSpeaker will automatically start reading web page text out loud.

Image of ReadSpeaker control panel

In the control panel you can:

  • pause the reading
  • stop the reading
  • rewind and fast forward the reading
  • adjust the volume
  • download the reading for the entire page as an MP3 file
  • customize the settings by clicking on the settings cog icon

Listen to selected text

You don't have to listen to a whole page if you only want to listen to a few paragraphs. You can select the text that you want to listen to and then press the pop-up listen button which appears next to the mouse pointer after you have made your selection. When you click the pop-up listen button, the control panel will appear and ReadSpeaker will automatically start reading your selected text.

Settings

In the settings menu you can choose whether you want the:

  • text highlighted word by word and/or sentence by sentence as you listen, or turn off the highlighting
  • pop-up listen button shown when text is selected
  • reading speed to be slow, medium or fast.

For more information visit ReadSpeaker's text-to-speech website.

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