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Listen reads articles, newsletters, PDFs, and video transcripts aloud with your device’s own voices. It marks the paragraph and sentence as it goes, so you can follow along or look away.

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Start listening

In the reader, choose Listen, or press l. On a phone, choose ⋯, then Listen. The Listen bar appears at the bottom of the reader. Press l again to pause or resume.

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The Listen bar

  • Play and Pause.
  • Previous paragraph and Next paragraph.
  • Speed, from 0.5× to 3×.
  • Position, a slider to skip ahead or go back.
  • Voice, to pick one of your device’s voices.
  • Sleep timer: off, 15, 30, or 60 minutes.
The bar also shows roughly how many minutes are left. Choose More listening options to see the voice, position, and sleep timer. Speed and voice are remembered on each device. If you scroll away while listening, choose Back to reading position to jump back to the sentence being read. On a phone, the reader’s bottom bar tucks behind a tab while Listen is open. Swipe the tab up to bring the bar back.

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Pick up where you stopped

Listen remembers where you stopped, on any device. If you come back to it and scroll somewhere else, it asks whether to Resume where you stopped or Start here. When Listen reaches the end, it marks the article read.

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What Listen skips

Listen skips footnotes, figure captions, and page headers and numbers. It says when it skips a code block or a table.

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When Listen is greyed out

The Listen button stays in place but is greyed out when it can’t work, and says why:
  • Your browser can’t read aloud. Try a recent Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox.
  • A scanned PDF has no text to read.
  • Handwritten notes sent from a Supernote can’t be read aloud. See Supernote.
Images don’t offer Listen, and neither do videos unless they have a transcript.
Some devices don’t follow the voice chosen in the Listen bar. Chrome on Android always uses the phone’s own voice. If the voice doesn’t change, change it in your device’s settings.