MS Edge narrating e-books but not pdf

sonamsopmist · 20 Oct 2017

Hello, I own a win10 home laptop, and wile exploring Edge, I realized it has a text-to-speech feature. I opened an .epub file and on top right a small button appears among others that enables narrating mode. It work surprisingly well, I experimented with a variety of voices to narrate, in 2 languages, but when I use edge to open a .pdf file, there is no such button/icon. Is there a way to make Edge narrate more text formats? I'd rather not fill my computer with too many applications and programs, like converters and other TTS.

p.s. please do not mind any misspelling or syntax errors, I'm not very good in English.

dalchina · 20 Oct 2017

Well, you can use the Windows Narrator - if you can control it. It's the same voice as the example you quoted with an epub document.

To launch Narrator- win key + CTRL + Enter

I found it very hard to get it to read what I wanted it to read... but I probably missed the appropriate key sequence etc. (and I was using a text-based pdf, and there was no 'Read Aloud' button as you say).

Helmut · 21 Oct 2017

I think you will find the PDFs which won't read aloud have text as an image not text.
You can tell in Edge PDF Reader, and indeed in Adobe Reader, by using the text selection tool/cursor. It does not work on image text, You cannot select any text.
For those with image text you would have to do OCR.