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How to enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to hear text read aloud

• You can enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to have written content read aloud.
• Both Kindle content and your personal documents can utilize the text-to-speech feature.
• Text-to-speech inputs are also available for languages other than English and can be downloaded via the progress bar within the book itself.
• Visit Business Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories .

If you are vision-impaired or simply want to hear your book or document aloud rather than reading the text, Kindle Fire has a text-to-speech feature that will translate the written words to audio so you can listen aloud. Best of all, text-to-speech is not only available for Kindle books but also for many (though not all) personal text files.

Turning on text-to-speech is easy and should only take a few seconds. Books in the Kindle store will even notify you if the capability is available before you purchase, though the feature must be turned on within the book or document itself, where available. Once enabled, you can begin playing the audio immediately. 

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Amazon kindle (from $89.00 at amazon) , amazon fire hd 8 tablet ( from $59.99 at amazon), how to enable text-to-speech on your kindle fire.

1. On your Kindle Fire, open the book or document you wish you read. 

2. In the upper right corner of the screen, tap the three vertically stacked dots to reveal a list of menu options. 

3. Tap "Additional settings."

4. Scroll down until you see the "Text-to-Speech" option and toggle the button to the "on" position, which will turn the toggle box orange. 

5. Hit the "back" button to return to your book. 

6. To begin utilizing text-to-speech, tap the screen and then tap the play button at the bottom to begin hearing your book. Your book or document should then begin to be read aloud.

Related coverage from  Tech Reference :

'why won't my kindle charge': how to troubleshoot charging issues on your kindle device, how to read kindle books on a pc in 2 different ways, how to restart your kindle device in 3 simple steps to get back in working order, you can use text-to-speech in the kindle app on an ipad using an accessibility feature — here's how to turn it on, a guide to text-to-speech, the popular accessibility feature that lets your computer, phone, or tablet read to you.

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Insider Inc. receives a commission when you buy through our links.

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• Guide to Reading Books with VoiceView on Fire Tablet

Use gestures and Text-to-Speech to read and interact with your book on Fire tablet (FireOS 5 and higher).

You can switch between two modes of reading: continuous and non-continuous. Continuous reading will read all pages in the book, while non-continuous reading will read a page, character, or word on the page.

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How to enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to hear text read aloud

Jennifer still   .

• You can enable the text-to-speech feature on your Kindle Fire device to have written content read aloud.
• Both Kindle content and your personal documents can utilize the text-to-speech feature.
• Text-to-speech inputs are also available for languages other than English and can be downloaded via the progress bar within the book itself.

If you are vision-impaired or simply want to hear your book or document aloud rather than reading the text, Kindle Fire has a text-to-speech feature that will translate the written words to audio so you can listen aloud. Best of all, text-to-speech is not only available for Kindle books but also for many (though not all) personal text files.

Turning on text-to-speech is easy and should only take a few seconds. Books in the Kindle store will even notify you if the capability is available before you purchase, though the feature must be turned on within the book or document itself, where available. Once enabled, you can begin playing the audio immediately.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

Amazon kindle (from $89.00 at amazon), amazon fire hd 8 tablet ( from $59.99 at amazon), how to enable text-to-speech on your kindle fire.

1. On your Kindle Fire, open the book or document you wish you read.

2. In the upper right corner of the screen, tap the three vertically stacked dots to reveal a list of menu options.

3. Tap "Additional settings."

4. Scroll down until you see the "Text-to-Speech" option and toggle the button to the "on" position, which will turn the toggle box orange.

5. Hit the "back" button to return to your book.

6. To begin utilizing text-to-speech, tap the screen and then tap the play button at the bottom to begin hearing your book. Your book or document should then begin to be read aloud.

Related coverage from Tech Reference :

'why won't my kindle charge': how to troubleshoot charging issues on your kindle device, how to read kindle books on a pc in 2 different ways, how to restart your kindle device in 3 simple steps to get back in working order, you can use text-to-speech in the kindle app on an ipad using an accessibility feature — here's how to turn it on, a guide to text-to-speech, the popular accessibility feature that lets your computer, phone, or tablet read to you, read more articles on.

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How to Use Text-To-Speech on Amazon Kindle

Paurush dabbles around iOS and Mac while his close encounters are with Android and Windows. Before becoming a writer, he produced videos for brands like Mr. Phone and Digit. On weekends, he is a full-time cinephile trying to reduce his never-ending watchlist, often making it longer.

• The text-to-speech feature on Kindle is called VoiceView Screen Reader.
• You can use VoiceView Screen Reader on Kindle while driving or finishing your tasks.

Enable Text-To-Speech on Kindle

The VoiceView Screen Reader is an accessibility feature that lets you listen to Kindle books over Bluetooth. This feature is available for all Kindle models that support Bluetooth.

Step 1: On your Kindle home screen , tap the three vertical dots at the top-right corner and select Settings .

Step 2: Tap on Accessibility and select VoiceView Screen Reader .

Step 3: Enable the toggle for VoiceView Screen Reader .

Step 4: Keep your Bluetooth device in Pairing Mode while your Kindle device tries to connect with it.

Step 5: After your Kindle detects the Bluetooth device, hold two fingers on your Kindle screen to finish the pairing process.

After pairing your Bluetooth device, you will hear an audio response while navigating your Kindle. You must first select and then double-tap to use the feature or option.

Step 6: Go back and open the book you are reading to use the text-to-speech feature.

After opening your book, the feature will start working automatically.

Adjust Speech Rate on Kindle

Step 3: Tap on Speech Rate . Select the reading speed of your choice.

Step 5: Go back and tap on Volume . Select the text-to-speech volume level of your choice to make your Kindle read aloud.

To disconnect your Bluetooth device or connect to a previously added device, tap on Bluetooth Devices .

You can tap the toggle for VoiceView Screen Reader again and select Turn Off to disable it.

How to Fix Kindle Text-To-Speech Not Working or Keeps Stopping

If you can’t use the VoiceView Screen Reader feature on your Kindle, reconnect your Bluetooth device.

Step 1: On the Kindle home page , tap the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Settings .

Step 3: Tap on Bluetooth Devices . Select Bluetooth Wizard to disconnect your Kindle from all Bluetooth devices.

Step 5: Reconnect your Kindle with your Bluetooth device and check if the problem is solved.

Another reason the VoiceView Screen Reader is not working might be the low battery levels on your Kindle. We suggest charging it and checking back later to see if the problem is solved. Refer to our post if your Kindle is not charging .

If the problem continues, you might have to install a new Kindle software update. Here’s how to check for one.

Step 1: Tap the down arrow at the top of the Kindle screen to reveal more options. Then, select All Settings.

Step 2: Tap the three vertical dots in the top-right corner and select Update Your Kindle .

If the option is greyed out, your Kindle is already running on the latest software version.

You can also refer to our post if your Kindle is not allowing you to save your highlights while reading ebooks.

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Last updated on 12 April, 2024

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How to Activate Voice on Kindle

Last Updated: November 5, 2022

This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. This article has been viewed 131,983 times. Learn more...

Kindle’s “Screen Reader” option (formerly Voice Guide) is an accessibility feature that uses voice narration of menu and page selections. The feature can be accessed from the “Accessibility” menu in the settings. In addition Kindle Readers and Fire tablets can use “Text to Speech” on certain titles, wherein the Kindle will read the ebook text out loud. This setting can be accessed from the reading toolbar settings menu while reading an ebook.

Activating Screen Reader

Activating Text-To-Speech

• Amazon will list if Text to Speech is supported in the “Product Details” section of a book’s store page. [1] X Research source

• Sound will play through the Kindle's external speakers or you can use earphones plugged into the headphone jack.

Community Q&A

• You may want to deactivate Screen Reader while using Text to Speech or listening to an Audiobook to avoid interruption. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Activating any of the voice options will cause the Kindle to use battery life more quickly. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 1
• Note: the Kindle Paperwhite does not support any audio features without purchasing the Kindle Audio Adapter. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

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• ↑ https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201286790#GUID-F6CD3CEB-6E55-41EC-9B65-219A9C775B51__SECTION_9B1D523DA1EF4F2799B178F40FB79D00

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Have your kindle books read to you using text-to-speech feature

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Listen to Content with Text-to-Speech.

Note : Most Kindle content and personal documents are eligible for Text-to-Speech. If Text-to-Speech capability is available for your book, you’ll see Text-to-Speech: Enabled on the product detail page before you purchase your book. While reading, tap the center of the screen, and then tap the menu icon Aa in the upper right corner. Tap More, and then tap the switch next to Text-to-Speech to turn it on. In your Kindle book, tap the screen to show the progress bar, and then tap the Play button next to the progress bar to hear the text read aloud. To increase or decrease the reading speed of the Text-to-Speech voice, tap the Narration Speed icon. You can listen to the Text-to-Speech voice through the external speakers on your device or through your earphones plugged into the headphone jack. Tip: If you’re reading a book in another language, you can download a Text-to-Speech voice for that language without leaving the book. Tap the download prompt at the bottom of the progress bar to install the Text-to-Speech voice.

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How to Use Text-to-Speech on Kindles Using VoiceView (Video)

November 14, 2018 by Nathan

While Kindles don’t have an official text-to-speech feature that can be easily turned on and off from the menu like Fire tablets have, Kindles do have an accessibility feature called VoiceView that effectively works like text-to-speech once you enable it.

The VoiceView Screen Reader is designed to help make Kindles usable for people with vision problems. It reads everything onscreen aloud, including the menus and the pages of ebooks, and it will even automatically turn pages as it reads aloud, though it does make a clicking noise when doing so.

The voice is fairly pleasant by text-to-speech standards, and you can adjust the speech rate in settings.

Since it’s designed to be an accessibility feature, using VoiceView requires navigating your Kindle differently.

You have to tap something to select it, then double-tap again anywhere on the screen to activate the selection. You can also toggle through different menu items by swiping the screen left or right.

It takes some getting used to but once you get it figured out it works pretty well.

This works with the new Kindle Paperwhite 4 , the $79 Kindle and Kindle Oasis using Bluetooth. It’ll work with some older Kindle as well but you have to use an audio adapter since they don’t have Bluetooth.

How to Use TTS on Kindles

First you have to turn on Bluetooth from the settings menu and connect Bluetooth headphones or speakers to your Kindle. I’m using this Anker speaker and it works well and has surprisingly long battery life.

With a Bluetooth device connected, you can turn on VoiceView by going to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceView Screen Reader .

Once turned on there’s a tutorial and some settings that will become accessible.

It helps to go through the tutorial to learn how everything works. Just keep in mind you have to double tap every time to make a selection, that’s after either tapping once to select something or swiping left and right to move between onscreen selections.

Tip: Once you connect your speaker and turn on VoiceView, you can turn off your Bluetooth device to quickly turn off VoiceView to go back to regular navigation. Then once you open your book you can simply turn your Bluetooth device back on and it will automatically turn VoiceView back on.

Text-to-Speech on Kindles

Reader Interactions

November 16, 2018 at 9:39 pm

Thank you nice video.

December 25, 2018 at 10:27 am

I keep getting a quote Bluetooth device not found“ and I follow the directions for holding down the power button for nine seconds but I get a window that pops up and says power please select from the following options cancel restart screen off. Argh!!!

July 26, 2019 at 11:07 pm

Hi Matthew, had the same problem, forget the 9 seconds, click in the top of your screen, click settings, all settings, wifi and bluetooth, turn Bluetooth on, then click in bt devices and pair there

Then the most important step, you need to go into settings/ all settings/ accessibility / voice view and turn it on there – that’ll sort you 🙂

January 22, 2019 at 5:43 am

Is there a timer on any of the kindles

January 22, 2019 at 6:17 am

Not unless you still consider a Fire tablet a Kindle (some do). Kindles have a clock but no timer.

May 12, 2019 at 9:34 am

Considering that gor some accessibility features are necessity and not a luxury its disappointing when TTS is quite difficult to access. On my very first kindle keyboard, TTS worked like a dream and was easily turned on and off. Then TTS was made accessible to Kindle Reading apps too so it was possible to listen to books on my phone. Having a hand disability means I only want to carry one small device around and I want to be able to turn Read Aloud off and on again within my book. Using voice on menu items can be very annoying and difficult with audio getting on your nerves. Double tapping is difficult and often fails in hand disabilities. However, with the relaunch of Audible as an Amazon bought company it meant they didn’t want TTS to minimise sales of Prof narrated books, so they removed it from reading apps which is a step back. And yes, I did have a Fire Phone, which was great for using Amazon products IN TTS but disappointingly it caused multiple duplicates of texts to be sent to the same recipient over and over and Amazon admitted they couldn’t fix that, made worse as you were locked into O2 and at the highest level of CEOs, Amazon said it was unlikely to fix the issue and advised me to purchase an alternative Android competitors’ phone. Of course I did, but that now means I have no TTS on my Kindle books on my Samsung phone.

January 25, 2021 at 12:04 pm

I have a Kindle Paperwhite 6. I am able to select the text to speech and BT functions with no problem.

BUT I have not been able to figure out or find videos or written instructions on HOW TO PAUSE AND RESTART the reading of the book I am reading. Does such functions exist with this Text to Speech program?

I have gone batty, Thanks for your help. signed: gone batty