Have you ever wished that your iPhone or iPad could read text aloud to you? With the text-to-speech feature on iOS devices, it can! This powerful feature allows you to have selected text read back to you in a wide variety of languages and accents. Whether you’re looking to have a long article read to you or want an audio version of a text message, text-to-speech can help.
Here we’ll show you how to enable and use text-to-speech on any iOS device. We’ll walk you through the steps to turn on the feature and show you how to use it to read selected text aloud. We’ll also cover some advanced options, such as changing the speaking rate and selecting different voices.
So if you’re ready to start using text-to-speech on your iPhone or iPad, read on! We’ll show you everything you need to know to get started.
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What is Text-to-Speech?
Have you ever been reading a long article or book and wished that someone could just read it to you? Or maybe you’ve received a text message while driving and wanted to hear it without taking your eyes off the road. Well, with text-to-speech technology, you can do just that!
Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of assistive technology that converts written text into spoken words. It allows your device to read selected text aloud to you in a natural-sounding voice. This can be incredibly useful for a variety of reasons, such as helping you read long articles or providing an audio version of a text message.
TTS technology has come a long way in recent years. Today’s TTS voices sound more natural and human-like than ever before. And with the ability to choose from a wide variety of languages and accents, you can customize the voice to suit your preferences.
So whether you’re looking to have a long article read to you or want an audio version of a text message, text-to-speech can help. It’s a powerful tool that can make your life easier and more convenient in many ways.
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How to Activate text to speech on iPhone with Speak Selection
To enable text-to-speech on iPhone, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to “Settings” and tap on “Accessibility”.
2. In Spoken Content, tap on “Spoken Content”.
3. Slide the “Speak Selection” toggle to “ON”. This will enable Text-to-speech when you select any text on the screen.
4. Optionally, adjust the “Speaking Rate” slider to an appropriate setting for your preferences.
5. To change the TTS voice, navigate to “Voices” and select your language. And then you can select from a bunch of speakers with different accents.
6. Now simply navigate to any website, and select any text. Once you select the text you will find a “Speak” option. Now select this option and you can listen to the text using the TTS functionality.
Additional Features under Spoken Content Settings
In the Spoken Content section, you have the ability to make a variety of changes. Here’s a quick rundown of all the key customizations you can make:
Speak Selection: Tap the Speak button to hear the selected text read aloud.
Speak Screen: Swipe down with two fingers from the top of the screen to hear the entire screen read aloud.
Speech Controller: Display the controller for easy access to Speak Screen and Speak on Touch. You can even modify the controller options, for example, Long Press to Read all Content, Double Tap to Speak on Touch and its idle opacity.
Highlight Content: Choose to have words, sentences, or both highlighted as they are spoken. You can also change the highlight colour and style.
Typing Feedback: Configure typing feedback for both onscreen and external keyboards. Choose to have your iPhone speak characters, entire words, auto-corrections, auto-capitalizations, and typing predictions. To hear typing predictions, go to Settings > General > Keyboards and turn on Predictive.
Voices: Select a voice and dialect.
Speaking Rate: Adjust the speaking rate by dragging the slider.
Pronunciations: Manually add and specify how certain phrases should be pronounced by dictating or spelling them out.
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How to Use the Speak Screen Feature on iOS
There is also the ‘Speak Screen’ feature on iOS devices that allows you to have your iPhone or iPad read whatever’s on the screen to you just by swiping two fingers down from the top of the page. It can read just about anything, from settings pages to websites to ebooks. This can be incredibly useful if you want to “read” but need your eyes to pay attention to something else.
To use Speak Screen feature, first, it needs to be enabled. Here’s how to turn on Speak Screen in iOS:
1. Navigate to Settings and select Accessibility.
2. Select “Spoken Content” and enable “Speak Screen” toggle. This will allow you to enable TTS by just swiping down two fingers on the screen.
3. If you want to manually control text-to-speech, navigate to “Speech Controller” and enable “Show Controller” option. This will show a small arrow on the left edge of the screen. And clicking on the arrow opens a popup widget that can be used to start the TTS and control its speed and more.
You can also adjust other settings such as ‘Highlight Content’, where iPhone can highlight words, sentences, or both as they’re spoken. You can change the highlight colour and style. You can also configure typing feedback for the onscreen and external keyboards and choose to have iPhone speak each character, entire words, auto-corrections, auto-capitalizations, and typing predictions.
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How to Activate text to speech on iPhone using SIRI
To turn on the Text-to-Speech feature, you have several options:
1. Summon Siri and ask “Speak Screen.”
2. If you haven’t enabled Text to speech from the Settings using the above guide then you will see a message on the screen to enable TTS.
3. Once you have enabled TTS from settings.
4. Highlight the text you want to read and tap the Speak button. Or simply ask Siri to “Speak Screen”
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