Microsoft has constantly been developing Windows 10 to be more user friendly, to help reach out to as many people as possible. The narrator is a great example of this, allowing people with reading or eyesight problems to hear things instead of seeing them on the screen.
Make Narrator Read Selected Text
Although the narrator was previously available on the earlier versions of Windows, it became really robust under Windows 8. With Windows 10, there are more features than ever, allowing users to make the narrator read text, options, instructions and almost everything on the screen.
How To Make Narrator Read Highlighted Text In Windows 10?
There are many commands associated with the narrator that can be used to control the app. With Narrator, you can make Windows 10 read the entire page, paragraph, word, or individual characters. To launch Narrator, you can use the keyboard shortcut Win + Ctrl + Enter.
Depending on the device, the Narrator key is the Caps lock key or the Insert key. An easy way to find this information is the Narrator Settings window. To access this, press Win + U which will launch the Ease of Access center. Here, switch to the Narrator menu, where you will the modifier in the right pane.
Scan Mode
You can use the scan mode in Narrator to scan for text on your display and read it out loud. To activate Scan mode, use the keyboard shortcut Narrator + Spacebar.
Next, move the scanner box using the arrow keys. Narrator will read whatever is in the scan box.
Apart from this, you need to memorize some quick commands, which you will be using quite frequently. Here, I shall tabulate the commands for your quick reference.
General Commands
Note: Narrator reads the contents instead of the Heading or Title tags.
| Action | Shortcut |
| Start or Stop reading | Ctrl key
|
| Read Title/Heading | Narrator + T |
| Read entire window | Narrator + W |
Read Text In A Document
You can use a multitude of keyboard shortcuts to make narrator read selected text in a document. Here are the various shortcuts that you can use in the Narrator app to read out aloud text on your display.
Read from cursor location
| Action | Shortcut | ||
| Read selected entry | Narrator + Tab | ||
| Read after cursor location | Narrator + R | ||
| Read from start of the document | Narrator + Ctrl + R
Or Narrator + Down |
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| Read from start of the document up to cursor location | Narrator + Shift + J
Or Narrator + Alt + Home |
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Read Sentence By Sentence
| Action | Shortcut | ||
| Read selected line | Narrator + I
Or Narrator + Up
|
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| Read from beginning of the next line | Narrator + O | ||
| Read from beginning of the previous line | Narrator + Ctrl + U
|
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| Read from start of the current sentence | Narrator + Ctrl + Comma (,) | ||
| Read from start of the next sentence | Narrator + Ctrl + period (.) | ||
| Read from start of the current sentence | Narrator + Ctrl + M | ||
Read By Paragraph Or Page
| Action | Shortcut | ||
| Read present paragraph | Narrator + Ctrl + K
|
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| Read next paragraph | Narrator + Ctrl + L | ||
| Read previous paragraph | Narrator + Ctrl + J | ||
| Read current page | Narrator + Ctrl + I | ||
| Read next page | Narrator + Ctrl + O | ||
| Read previous page | Narrator + Ctrl + U | ||
Limitations To The Narrator
Microsoft’s narrator was very late to the party and lacks some features which you may be able to get via third party applications. One huge limitation is that the Narrator app can only read text from text boxes. Thus, your Windows 10 narrator app will be unable to read anything from page content.
This can be worked around, by copying the page content onto a text editor like MS Word or Notepad.
Another limitation that you must know about, is the fact that Windows 10 Narrator app does not recognize highlighted text right away, unlike some third party options available. Thus, to make Windows 10 read selected text, you will be using the methods provided above.
Wrapping Up
So there you have it. This was a complete guide on how to make narrator read highlighted text in Windows 10. Comment below if you found this useful, and to discuss further the same.
What I would like Narrator to do is to read only selected text upon some command and then stop and wait until some other text is selected and the command is given again. As it is, it reads anything the cursor crosses nonstop. How can I do this? As an alternative, upon some command, Narrator reads from the point where the cursor is at until either it is told to stop by some command or reaches the end of a paragraph. At this point, Narrator not only reads anywhere the cursor is at automatically without stopping, it repeats the title of the document or the page that it is on followed by the starting point of the desired text to be read. How can I change this?
Thanks in advance
I am looking for the same functionality. Highlight some text, then right click it and select “read aloud”, similar to what is in Edge.