Text to Speech

What is Text to Speech?

Text to speech converts written text into spoken audio using voices provided by the reader's own browser.

How to use

1. Enter up to 10,000 characters.
2. Choose a voice and speed.
3. Play, pause, resume, or stop speech.

About Text to Speech

This text-to-speech tool uses the browser's built-in speechSynthesis API. Enter text, select a voice when the browser finishes loading its voice list, choose a speed from 0.5× to 2×, and use Play. Pause and Resume control the current utterance, while Stop cancels playback and resets the sequence. The tool does not create an audio file and does not provide an audio download in v1.

Voices load asynchronously, so the page shows Loading voices until the voiceschanged event is delivered. Some voices are local to the device; others are marked online by the browser. Online voices may send text to the browser vendor's servers. That behavior belongs to the browser and its selected voice service, not to this site, so avoid entering private or sensitive text when you are unsure how a voice is provided.

Long passages are split into chunks of no more than 200 characters, preferably at sentence boundaries and then at spaces. The tool speaks each chunk in order to reduce the chance that a browser cuts off a long utterance. The text area limits input to 10,000 characters and shows a counter. Empty text disables Play and gives a hint rather than attempting an empty utterance.

Support varies between browsers and devices. If speechSynthesis is missing or no voices are available after loading, the page explains that the browser does not support text to speech and suggests Chrome, Edge, or Safari. The tool state is held in React memory only. Using it causes no request from our code, and refreshing clears the text, voice choice, and playback state.

Speech controls are deliberately explicit so audio never starts unexpectedly. A paused utterance can resume, while Stop cancels the queue and returns control to the visitor. If a browser changes its voice list after the page loads, the selector updates with the newly available choices. The best voice depends on the device language settings, installed voices, and browser implementation. For accessibility or proofreading, listen to a short sample first and adjust the speed before starting a long passage. The visible character limit keeps the interaction manageable on mobile devices.

If a long sentence sounds unnatural, add punctuation or split it into shorter sentences before playing it again. Chunking protects against browser cut-offs but does not rewrite the words or correct pronunciation. Playback is tied to the current page, so closing or refreshing the tab ends the session and removes the text from this tool's React state.