How to listen to text using the Read&Write app

Answered By: Jessica Wykes
Last Updated: 19 Dec 2023 Views: 312

Read&Write

Read&Write is a collection of tools to support reading and writing. Read&Write is a toolbar which can be used with a range of applications, such as Word and web browser pages. One of the key tools is the text-to-speech reader.

You can access Read&Write on campus. Launch it from the AppsAnywhere webpage which will automatically open in the browser when you logon to a student pc.

Text to Speech

Listening to Word documents.

  1. Place your cursor in the Word document where you want to start listening from.
  2. Press the Play button. The synthesized voice will read aloud and highlight the text and each word as it is spoken.
  3. Press the Stop button to stop the voice reading.
    The Read & Write toolbar open with a Word document. The Play button is highlighted. The text is Word is highlighted as it is read aloud.

Listening to webpages

  1. To listen to webpages make sure you have the Read&Write extension added to your browser.
  2. Select the text you want to listen to with your cursor and use the Play button to listen back.

Listening to PDFs.

  1. To listen back to a PDF download it onto your computer first. 
  2. Press the PDF Reader tool in the Read&Write toolbar
  3. You will be prompted to locate and open the PDF.
  4. The file will open in Read&Write's own PDF Reader. Click to Speak is on by default. Click anywhere in the document text to hear it read aloud.
  5. Click away from the document or press the Stop icon in the toolbar to stop the audio.
    The Read&Write toolbar showing the PDF Reader icon. The Read&Write PDF Reader is open showing  the Click to Speak icon and a highlighted PDF.

In the Read&Write settings, which can be found in the right of the toolbar in the three bar menu, you can choose from differently accented voices, change the speed of the voice and train the software how to pronounce subject-specific vocabulary, abbreviations or non-dictionary words. You can also choose from a range of highlighting colour combinations.

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