Read Aloud not highlighting words while reading

abhinavjain · 12-19-2021, 07:42 AM

Dear Kovid,

Thanks for the amazing work on Calibre. When I use Read aloud text-to-speech via the webserver then the built-in "Read aloud" doesn't highlight the word/sentence it is reading. I tried Chrome/FireFox/Edge and highlights don't show on all three browsers. Without the highlight tracking, it is impossible to use the feature.

Microsoft Edge's built-in speech-to-text (also called Read aloud) does show the highlight track (see below) but only in the default page setting. If the paged mode is changed to flow mode or any other layout settings are set then it stops showing as well.

Is there a way to fix this issue? I am using Calibre portable 5.34 on Windows 10 PC.

kovidgoyal · 12-19-2021, 10:42 AM

Sadly not, its a limitation of the browser's speech api. You can get highlighting if you use the native calibre viewer.

abhinavjain · 12-20-2021, 10:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

Sadly not, its a limitation of the browser's speech api. You can get highlighting if you use the native calibre viewer.

Thanks, Kovid. I am fine with using the native calibre viewer via HTTP but that is not working. Do you mean that the highlighting doesn't work for the native calibre web viewer as well?

I am only used the browser's tts for investigating.

kovidgoyal · 12-20-2021, 10:43 AM

Yeah it doesnt work when run in the browser.It only works in calibre's native code e-book viewer.

rrhpablo · 04-28-2023, 09:00 PM

Is the speech api still a limitation for this feature? Read Aloud feature is complicated to use without this, becaus the page doesn't follow the reading either.

Otherwise, could it be a good idea a feature to enable/disable Calibre context menu and make scrolling work as with regular sites, to use Microsoft Edge's read aloud feature meanwhile?

12-19-2021, 07:42 AM	#1
abhinavjain Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2021 Device: Onyx Boox NovaPro	Read Aloud not highlighting words while reading Dear Kovid, Thanks for the amazing work on Calibre. When I use Read aloud text-to-speech via the webserver then the built-in "Read aloud" doesn't highlight the word/sentence it is reading. I tried Chrome/FireFox/Edge and highlights don't show on all three browsers. Without the highlight tracking, it is impossible to use the feature. Microsoft Edge's built-in speech-to-text (also called Read aloud) does show the highlight track (see below) but only in the default page setting. If the paged mode is changed to flow mode or any other layout settings are set then it stops showing as well. Is there a way to fix this issue? I am using Calibre portable 5.34 on Windows 10 PC.

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12-19-2021, 10:42 AM	#2
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,609 Karma: 28549044 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Sadly not, its a limitation of the browser's speech api. You can get highlighting if you use the native calibre viewer.

12-20-2021, 10:43 AM	#4
kovidgoyal creator of calibre Posts: 45,609 Karma: 28549044 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Mumbai, India Device: Various	Yeah it doesnt work when run in the browser.It only works in calibre's native code e-book viewer.

04-28-2023, 09:00 PM	#5
rrhpablo Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2022 Device: none	Is the speech api still a limitation for this feature? Read Aloud feature is complicated to use without this, becaus the page doesn't follow the reading either. Otherwise, could it be a good idea a feature to enable/disable Calibre context menu and make scrolling work as with regular sites, to use Microsoft Edge's read aloud feature meanwhile?