Text to speech
Type, paste or load a text and hear it read aloud with the voices on your device, or create a WAV audio file with an English voice to save it.
Local voices and the audio file are created on your device. Voices marked “online” may send the text to their manufacturer.
Your browser can't read text aloud
This tool uses your browser's built-in speech synthesis, which isn't available here. Try an up-to-date Chrome, Edge, Safari or Firefox, on your phone or your computer.
You can also drag a .txt or .docx file onto the box. It is not uploaded to any server.
Type or paste some text to listen to it.
We couldn't find any voices on this device
Voices come from your system. Add an English voice and reload the page:
- Windows: Settings, Time & language, Speech, Add voices.
- Android: Settings, System, Languages, Text-to-speech output, and choose the Google engine.
- Mac and iPhone: Settings, Accessibility, Spoken Content, System Voices.
- Linux: install speech-dispatcher and espeak-ng, or use Chrome with its online voices.
Play
Type or paste some text to be able to listen to it.
The text couldn't be read
Voice and speed
Pitch applies only when reading aloud: the downloadable audio is created with the voice's natural pitch.
Your browser can't create the audio file
The download uses WebAssembly and a background process, which this browser doesn't offer. You can still listen to the text with the Play button.
Download the audio
Creates an audio file (WAV) with an English voice that runs on your device. Your text is not sent to any server: only the voice is downloaded, once.
The pitch above is not applied to the file: the voice keeps its natural pitch.
The audio couldn't be created
How to use it
- Type or paste your text, or load a .txt or .docx file. You can read up to 100,000 characters.
- Pick a voice from the list. The ones marked “local” run on your device without sending the text anywhere.
- Adjust the speed, pitch and volume if you like. If you move them while it is reading, the current sentence repeats with the new value.
- Press Play. You can pause, skip sentences, or click any sentence to continue from there.
- To save the audio, scroll down to “Download the audio”, pick the file voice, press Create audio, then Download WAV.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text sent to a server?
Not with the voices marked “local”: the audio is created on your device. Some “online” voices, such as Google’s in Chrome or Microsoft’s natural voices in Edge, send the text to the manufacturer’s service to create the audio. Turn on “Local voices only” if your text is private. The downloadable audio file is also created on your device: only the voice is downloaded, and your text is never uploaded.
Why don’t I see any English voices?
The voices come from your system, not from this page. On Windows, add them in Settings, Time & language, Speech. On Android, install the Google engine in Settings, System, Languages, Text-to-speech output. On Mac and iPhone, go to Accessibility, Spoken Content, System Voices. Then reload the page.
Can I download the audio?
Yes, as a WAV file. In “Download the audio” you pick an English voice and press Create audio: it is created on your device, you can listen to it right there and download it. The first time, the voice is downloaded (about 77 MB including the engine) and saved in your browser, so the next time it starts straight away. The file uses the speed and volume you chose, but not the pitch, and it holds up to 10,000 characters (about 10 minutes of audio). If your text is longer, it is split into parts and you can create one audio per part. It does not create MP3s: a WAV is larger, but it opens in any program.
Why does the file voice sound different from Play?
Play uses the voices installed on your system or in your browser. The file uses open voices from the Piper project, which run inside the page and sound the same on any device. They are US English voices of medium quality: clear and natural for reading texts, though plainer than the online voices from the big vendors.
How does it read numbers, dates and abbreviations?
In the audio file, numbers are read the American way: “1,234” becomes “one thousand two hundred thirty-four”, years such as 1999 become “nineteen ninety-nine”, and amounts like $5.50 become “five dollars and fifty cents”. Times (3:30 pm), dates (12/25/2024), percentages, ordinals (21st) and abbreviations such as Dr., Mr. or St. are expanded too. With the Play button, the numbers are read by the voice you chose.
Why does pausing restart the sentence on my phone?
Some Android browsers cannot pause the voice in the middle of a sentence. In that case, when you resume, the current sentence starts over, not the whole text.
What listening to a text is good for
Listening to a text helps you proofread: awkward rhythm, sentences that run too long and repeated words are much easier to catch by ear than by eye. It also keeps you company through a long read while you do something else, helps people who prefer or need to listen instead of read, and is useful for practicing the pronunciation of a language.
Local voices and online voices
The voices are the ones your operating system or browser offers. Local voices create the audio inside your device. Online voices often sound more natural, but the browser may send the text to the manufacturer’s server to create them. Each voice in the list says which is which.
Download the audio as a file
If you need to keep the reading, for example to listen offline or to use it in a video, use the “Download the audio” section. You pick an English voice, and the tool creates a WAV file inside your browser without sending your text to any server. The first time, the voice is downloaded (about 63 MB, plus about 14 MB for the engine) and saved in your browser; after that, creating audio downloads nothing.
The voices come from the open Piper project and were trained on public-domain recordings. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, from Carnegie Mellon University, plus our own rules for numbers, dates, abbreviations and words that are not in the dictionary. The audio is built sentence by sentence, with longer pauses at periods and paragraph breaks, and it applies the speed and volume you chose above. Creating the audio takes longer than listening, depends on your device, and you can cancel at any time.
Tips for a better result
- Put a period at the end of every sentence: the voice pauses where there is a period.
- Spell out numbers the way you want them read. With the number to words converter you can turn 1,250 into “one thousand two hundred fifty”.
- Write acronyms in capital letters: “USA” is spelled out letter by letter, while common ones like NASA are read as words.
- Lower the speed to 0.8 for technical text or if you are learning the language.
Updated on September 30, 2026