Make Documents Read To You

Sometimes it’s difficult to sit and read. For some, it’s best to hear the words while reading. Listening to the text allows a reader to power through prepared material without stopping or losing place if interrupted. It can also allow a reader to work on other tasks around the house or office while listening to longer documents.

Many text processing programs like Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat and even Google Chrome have text-to-audio functions. An additional benefit of the audio playback is the ability to listen to correspondences before sending or publishing. This can avoid both major mistakes as well as odd word combinations. The listener will hear the problem and has time to fix it before publishing or sending. Headphones or speakers are needed.

Microsoft Word
The Read Aloud button is located under the Review tab. Click the icon. Place the cursor at the location where the program should begin and hit the Play triangle located at the right-hand top of the page.

Click the double triangle pointing to the right to jump to the next paragraph - it goes to the next word after a hard return. Click the double triangle pointing to the left to jump to the beginning of the current paragraph. Click it twice to move to the previous paragraph.

Click on the speaker with a gear to select a male or female voice and use the slider to adjust the speed.

Outlook Email

Outlook is also a Microsoft product. It has the same controls and voices as Word. Expand the viewing window to full screen. While the Home tab is active, Read Aloud is located on the right-hand side of the top ribbon.

Adobe Acrobat reader

The Read Out Loud button is located under View. Click View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud (shift + Ctrl + Y) Next, go through these initial steps again: Click View > Read Out Loud

Then, select either “Read This Page Only” (shift + Ctrl + V) or “Read to End of Document” (shift + Ctrl + B). Select (shift + Ctrl + Y) to stop the Read Out Loud function.

If the page is a .jpg or scanned text (essentially a photo of text), Select Edit PDF on the right-hand side of the page in Adobe Acrobat Pro. It will perform an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of the page and reset the text. Save the document with OCR text after each page converts. It can now go through the Read Out Loud steps listed above.

Google Chrome

Search online for “Google Chrome Read Aloud.” Click the Add to Chrome button at the top right-hand side of the page. When the popup window appears, choose Add to Chrome.

To see it on the toolbar, click on the jigsaw puzzle piece > click the thumbtack icon next to the program. An orange megaphone should appear at the top of the page.

To play, click the megaphone icon. The options of Tab Backward, Play, Stop and Tab forward are available.

If Stop is chosen, a new popup window appears with a Play button and a Settings button (looks like a gear). Choose Play to resume.

Choose the gear button to change the Voice, Speed, Pitch, Volume and Text Highlighting. Close the popup window to save the adjusted settings.

YouTube Bonus

Don’t have time for a 2-hour presentation? Hear the presentation in 90 minutes instead!

Open a preferred video. Click on the gear button located at the lower right-hand corner of the video > click Playback Speed > select speed up to 2X > video will adjust with minimal change to pitch. Incidentally, for a good laugh, set it on .25 speed and the narrators will sound drunk. Ads will play at normal speed.

I’ve Got Your Six!

Mark M. Hancock, GRI, MRP, AHWD
REALTOR, New Home certified
214-862-7212
DFWmark.com

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