Read aloud · free · on your device

Read aloud whatever is in front of you

Articles, PDFs, EPUBs, notes, drafts, documentation, Lumotext reads them out loud and marks the line as it goes, so you can follow along instead of drifting off.

Read something aloud now Common questions

No account needed to start. Reading happens on your device.

Read aloud, properly

A read aloud tool that keeps you on the page.

A read aloud tool is only useful if you can still find your place in the text. That is the part most of them skip: they produce audio and leave you to keep up. Lumotext lights the paragraph you are in, the sentence being spoken, and the word being said, three levels at once, so reading along takes no effort at all.

It works two ways. In the web app, paste text or import a document and press play. With the browser extension, a small player appears on the page you are already reading, so a long article gets read aloud in place, no copying, no second tab. Hover a paragraph and start from there.

Everything is spoken by the voices already installed on your computer, so there is nothing to upload and nothing to wait for. That also means the read aloud works when you are offline, as long as the voice you picked is one your system stores locally.

Product notes · 9 min read

Reading more without reading faster

The obvious response to “I have too much to read” is “read faster.” It is also the wrong one, and it has been the wrong one for a long time.

Speed reading, in its popular form, mostly works by reducing the number of fixations your eyes make per line and suppressing subvocalisation. The techniques do measurably increase words per minute. They also, in study after study, reduce comprehension roughly in proportion.

So the ceiling is real. For dense material, most adults read somewhere around 200 to 300 words per minute with good comprehension, and pushing past that trades understanding for the feeling of progress.

The interesting question is not how to go faster. It is how much of your existing capacity you are currently losing.

Reading a page in place: paragraph, sentence and word all marked as the voice moves.

How it reads

Built for following, not just hearing.

Follow-along highlighting

Paragraph, sentence and word, lit in step with the voice. Look away, look back, and you have not lost the line.

Read from here

Hover any paragraph and a small play control appears in the margin. Click it and the read aloud starts from that sentence.

Immersive mode

Strips a page down to the article itself, no nav, no sidebar, no related-stories rail, and reads that in a clean single or double column.

Code stays quiet

Code blocks stay visible on screen but are never read out loud, which matters if you read documentation.

Reduced motion respected

The highlight honours your system’s reduced-motion setting, and every control is reachable from the keyboard.

Resumes where you stopped

Your position is remembered per page and per document, and follows your account between the extension and the web app.

Step by step

How to have a page read aloud.

Choose where you are reading

For a document or pasted text, open the web app. For an article you are already on, use the browser extension so the player comes to the page.
Start from any sentence

Press play to read from the top, or hover the paragraph you care about and start from there. Skip forward and back a sentence at a time.
Tune it to how you read

Set the voice and the speed, switch on the dyslexia-friendly typeface if it helps, and open immersive mode when the page around the text is in the way.

FAQ

Read aloud questions, answered.

Can it read a whole web page aloud?

Yes. The browser extension reads the page in place, and immersive mode strips the article out of the surrounding page first so that navigation, adverts and related-story rails are not read to you.

Can I start reading from the middle?

Yes, click or hover the sentence you want and the voice starts there. That is usually faster than scrubbing an audio timeline, and it is the reason the reader chunks text by sentence rather than producing one long audio file.

Does it need an internet connection?

Only to load the app the first time. Voices that your system stores locally keep working offline. Voices that your browser synthesises online. They are labelled as such in the picker, do need a connection.

Will it read aloud in other languages?

It reads with whatever voices your operating system has installed, which on most systems includes a range of languages. Add a language’s voice in your system settings and it appears in the picker.

Is a read aloud tool the same as a screen reader?

No. A screen reader such as VoiceOver or NVDA narrates the entire interface for someone navigating without sight. A read aloud tool reads the content you chose, for anyone who takes in text better by ear. Lumotext is the second kind, and it is built to be used alongside the first rather than to replace it.

Start reading in the next minute.

Paste something in and press play. No email, no account. Sign in later if you want it saved.

Open the app How we handle your data

Free to use. An optional free account syncs your library across devices.