Summary: Free Text to Speech in Your Browser
Text to speech is software that reads written text aloud. To use it free here, type or paste up to 10,000 characters into Text to speak, choose a voice, and click Play. The page uses the speech voices already built into your browser and operating system (the Web Speech API), so there is nothing to install, no account and no usage limit beyond the character cap. Which voices and languages you can pick depends on your device.
ZipConvert never receives your text; the speech is made by your browser. One exception sits with your browser vendor: voices marked online in the list may send the text to that vendor's speech service, while all other voices speak entirely on the device. It is a preview tool, so it plays audio but does not save it as a file.
Table of Use: What to Do and What You Hear
| Job | What to do | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Check how a script or announcement sounds | Paste it into Text to speak and click Play | The whole text read aloud at 1.0x speed, with a Speaking status line |
| Compare two or more voices | Choose Select voice, then click the ear button | The first sentence of your text, up to 120 characters, spoken by that voice |
| Hear a long article instead of reading it | Paste up to 10,000 characters and click Play | Playback in parts of up to 200 characters, with Speaking part 2 of 12 style progress |
| Practice a foreign language | Set Filter by language, pick a voice, lower Speed to 0.5x to 0.8x | Slower speech in a voice that matches the language of your text |
| See how numbers and dates are read | Click the Numbers sample, then Play | A sentence with a date, time, phone number, price and percentage, spoken by the current voice |
| Proofread by ear | Paste a draft, then Play and Pause where it sounds wrong | Missing words and clumsy sentences are easier to hear than see |
| Setting | Range | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | 0.5x to 2.0x in steps of 0.1 (default 1.0x) | Applies to the next Play |
| Pitch | 0.0 to 2.0 in steps of 0.1 (default 1.0) | Some voices ignore it |
| Volume | 0% to 100% in steps of 10% (default 100%) | Scales the browser output only, not your device volume |
Features of the Text to Speech Preview
- Every installed voice. The list is whatever your browser reports, sorted by language, with default and online voices labeled. Local voices are preferred when the page picks a starting voice.
- Language filter. It shows each language on your device with the number of voices.
- Voice preview. The ear button speaks the first sentence of your text, so the test is in the right language.
- Play, Pause, Resume, Stop with a progress line for long text.
- Long text in parts. Text is split at sentence, clause or word boundaries into parts of at most 200 characters, which avoids the Chrome cut-off where some voices stop after about 15 seconds.
- Four Sample Texts: Greeting, News, Story and Numbers.
- Right-to-left friendly. The text box detects direction automatically.
Not included: audio download, word highlighting, pronunciation markup and ZipConvert-hosted voices. If a browser lacks the Web Speech API, the page says so instead of failing silently.
How to Use the Text to Speech Preview
- Type or paste your text into Text to speak, or click a button under Sample Texts. The counter shows characters used out of 10,000.
- Optionally use Filter by language, then open Select voice and choose a voice.
- Click the ear button to preview the voice on your first sentence.
- Under Voice Settings, move Speed, Pitch and Volume.
- Click Play. While it speaks, use Pause and Resume, or Stop to end it.
- After changing a slider, press Stop and Play again to hear the new setting.
Before pasting a long text, count it with the Character Counter or the Word Counter. Line breaks are read as spaces, so end headings and list items with a full stop if you want the voice to pause. If a voice mispronounces an abbreviation, spell it out in bulk with Find and Replace, and reset text in capitals to sentence case with the Text Case Converter. To test long playback without writing anything, generate filler with the Lorem Ipsum Generator.
Who Can Use the Text to Speech Preview
- Writers and students who want to hear a draft read back to catch errors.
- Language learners practicing listening with a slowed-down voice for that language.
- Video and podcast makers auditioning how a script flows; time it with the Stopwatch.
- Developers and designers checking which voices their users are likely to hear on each platform.
To see how two script versions differ before you listen to both, compare them in the Text Diff Tool. If a phone number sounds wrong, reformat it with the Phone Number Formatter and play it again to compare.
FAQs: Text to Speech Questions
How do I make my browser read text aloud?
Paste or type the text into Text to speak, pick a voice under Select voice, and click Play. Use Pause and Resume to interrupt, and Stop to end it. The reading is done by the speech voices built into your browser and operating system, so no software needs installing. Speed, pitch and volume can be changed with the sliders before you press Play.
Which voices and languages are available?
Exactly the voices your browser and operating system provide, so the list differs between devices. Windows, macOS, iOS and Android each ship their own, and Chrome and Edge add some online voices. Filter by language to see what your device offers; more voices can be installed in your system's speech or accessibility settings.
Can I download text to speech as an MP3 or WAV file?
No. Browsers send speech synthesis straight to your speakers and give web pages no access to the audio, so this tool can only play it. To keep a recording, capture your computer's audio output with a recorder while the text plays, and check that you may reuse the voice commercially before publishing it.
Is it safe to paste private text into an online text to speech tool?
ZipConvert never receives your text, because speech is generated by your browser. Voices that run on the device keep it there. Voices labeled online in the list belong to your browser vendor, such as some Google voices in Chrome, and may send the text to that vendor's speech service. Choose a voice without the online label for fully on-device reading.
How long can the text be?
Up to 10,000 characters at a time; anything pasted beyond that is cut off and a notice appears. Long text is read as a queue of sentence-sized parts of at most 200 characters, which avoids a Chrome problem where some voices stop after about 15 seconds. The status line shows which part is playing, for example part 3 of 12.
Why does nothing happen when I press Play?
Check that the device volume is up and the tab is not muted. If the voice list is still empty after a few seconds, your system may have no speech voices installed, and the page then shows a notice saying so. Some browsers block sound until you have interacted with the page, so click Play again. If an error banner appears, it names the cause, such as a voice that needs an internet connection.
Why does changing speed or pitch not affect the speech that is playing?
The page sets speed, pitch and volume on every part of the text at the moment you press Play, so moving a slider during playback changes nothing until you press Stop and then Play. Some voices ignore pitch entirely, so a slider that seems to do nothing is usually the voice, not the page.
Why does the same text sound different on Windows, Mac and iPhone?
The voices belong to the operating system and browser, not to ZipConvert. Each platform ships different voices, accents and pronunciation rules, and quality varies widely between them. Use the ear button next to the voice list to compare voices on your own text.