The 5 Best Text-to-Speech Plugins for the Firefox Browser

If you're tired of reading while browsing, enjoy multitasking, or even just get better at hearing information, text-to-speech is a very powerful tool that can help you achieve all of the above.It also helps those with visual impairments, making it an important feature.

However, it's not always an easy feature to set up and use wherever you go.Fortunately, with these Firefox browser add-ons below, you can be sure to have text-to-speech wherever you go.

1. Read Aloud: Text to Speech Reader

Read Aloud is a Firefox add-on that lets you convert any web page you visit from text to speech.

In practice, you can use Read Aloud in two ways.If you simply click the "Read Aloud" button in the add-on's hotbar, it will start reading aloud for you any page you're viewing from the very top.

If you're just looking for a specific section of an add-on to read, you can highlight it first, then click the button.This will make Read Aloud read your choices aloud for you only.

The beauty of Read Aloud is its customizability.When the plugin is working, it will show a highlight of the text being read, you can turn it off completely if you want, or you can resize it to your liking.

You can pause, rewind and fast-forward reading, and even change the size of the text displayed by the plugin.

There are tons of different sounds to choose from, and the plugin even lets you adjust each sound individually via sliders so you can adjust the pitch, speed, and volume of the speech reading.

You can also add custom sounds to the plugin if you wish.This means that if none of the vast array of sounds available is right for you, you can still find one that's right for you.

2. Text-to-Speech (TTS)

If you're looking for something with a clean interface that's easy to use, Text to Speech should be for you.

To use TTS, all you need to do is highlight some text. Instead of hitting the TTS button or accessing the right-click menu from the plugin bar, TTS places a small blue speaker button above the highlighted text.

All you need to do is click on it to get started.The text itself is highlighted as the TTS reads to you, and you can pause and start reading at any time.

If you want to read specific text from outside the browser, you can also paste it directly into the add-on by clicking the button in the add-on hot bar.This is useful for programs that don't support text-to-speech or don't have PowerPoint's Speak feature to read text aloud.

3. Intelligent Speaker

There are many reasons to adopt text-to-speech technology, and productivity is one of them.True to its name, this Firefox add-on is great if you're looking for a great way to organize various articles or other papers you need to listen to.

The Intelligent Speaker works a little differently than some of the other entries on this list because it doesn't just convert what you're looking at from text to speech on the spot.

Instead, Intelligent Speaker allows you to save or add articles and files to its list so you can listen to it later.Say, for example, you found an article that you want to save and listen to later.All you have to do is open the Intelligent Speaker plugin and add the web page to your list.

When you want to read it later, you can turn on Intelligent Speaker and see all the articles or files you've saved.You can then listen to them at your own pace, one after the other, or one at a time at various different speeds.

You also have solid customizability options here.If you want a different voice, there are a lot of different options, and there's even support for 18 different languages.

It's worth noting, however, that before Intelligent Speaker locks you into using its program, you only have a total of one hour of listening time per month available to you.However, if you buy its premium plan, you can bump that number up to 24 hours of listening time per month.

4. Talkie

Talkie feels very much like a native feature of Firefox.To use it, all you need to do is make sure it's installed, then highlight some text and have it read to you.You can simply click the button itself in the add-on's hotspot, or use the right-click menu to ask it to speak.There is also a shortcut you can use.

There are also some small customization options available.For example, you can add extra sounds to Talkie, although this requires you to make sure they are installed on your system rather than getting them from any online database or similar.

You can also adjust the pitch and speed of your speaking voice from Talkie, but this requires you to purchase Talkie Premium.If you want to choose your own default voice for each language, then you also get this feature.

5. TTS Fox

If you want text-to-speech to work as a separate popup, then TTSFox is the best option on this list for doing it.

All you need to do is to highlight or copy some text and access the TTSFox plugin.You can adjust the pitch, speed, and volume of the actual speech at any time, although the number of voices available is limited.

Text-to-speech can improve your life

As you can see, there are many different options for text-to-speech plugins for Firefox.Everyone performs differently and targets different audiences, so you should try that too.Maybe the perfect add-on is out there waiting for you.