How To Use Narrator On Windows 10 [Tutorial]

This tutorial will go over some uses of the Narrator, a free built- in text-to-speech reader for Windows 10. The Ease of Access Center (or Accessibility tools) has been included in many prior versions of Windows 10 offer assistance to those who are visually or hearing impaired. In this tutorial, I will go over the Narrator tool on a Windows 10 device. A similar function exists in Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1 as well.

Description From Microsoft's website:

Narrator reads text on your PC screen aloud and describes events, such as notifications or calendar appointments, so you can use your PC without a display.

This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops,and tablets running the Windows 10 operating system (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) from all supported hardware manufactures, like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba,Lenovo, and Samsung).

[jenniferponzini]

But why can't I get it to read documents to me for example word or google docs? That's what I really need it for.

[sirsupesafro]

I thought I accidentally clicked on a Daily Dose of Internet video, at first, because of the "Hello, everyone" haha

[richardsaddress]

Do you know if it is possible to select text and hit a key command to speak that selected text like on appletosh?

[stevenpdxedu]

All I wanted to do is have windows help me to read some boring text in a PDF book. This tutorial, unfortunately is as useless as the program. I can't imagine anyone with the patients to wade through the steps necessary to achieve this simple task. I'm just going to freeware to DL a text reader and I know I'll have success well before I could even begin to figure this mess out. Thanks for the confusion Microsoft, you've done it again, and again . . .

[reefolD]

Thank you for putting this together. And I don't know if you don't know how to help but I thought I would try describing the issue.
I don't think I have said this in a way that explains it well. -I think that because in all of my searches, I still keep getting information about using the "narrator key" plus some other keys in order to have it read the text I wanted to read.
I have narrator set up but I can't get it to read my PDF or my email or any thing other than everything on the top and sides. I can't hover over what I want it to read and it will read it. It won't let me direct it to what I want it to read.
. It's reading every single thing on the screen and even when I somehow press the table to get the blue box to get it to switch from the side of the screen to what I actually want it to read, it won't read what's inside the blue box. I know how to get rid of the blue box. Without the blue box I still can't get it to read the words in my document.
I have taken the tutorials and I toggled on and off all the various options and I've been trying for months. I try and try and then stop and then try again. I have too much pain in my neck for me to use my arms and hands without it actually disabling me.
One of the problems is, a lot of the instructions tell me to press the narrator key plus all of these other keys
but I don't have a narrator key. I have three keys I can press together to turn the narrator on or off or I can go into the accessibility place and turn narrator off.
Do you have any ideas for how I can turn narrator on, click or hover somewhere and then have narrator read, starting then? I have a 100 page document and I would like to read at page 70, rather from the beginning. And then I want to be able to go to page 30 and read for 20 pages and then go back to the beginning and then go to page 70... For example.
Any ideas?✨

[redwoodzzz]

Hi, thank you for the info and many good tips!
Do you know if Narrator can switch automatically from english to french if both languages appear in a text on the same page ?

I’m teaching french to an english speaking student who became blind recently so we are looking for solutions for him.
Thanks again!

[Cube_Box]

The first time ever I need to use a narrator cuz my old laptop has a completely none functioning display, a none working VGA output and a none working HDMI output but guess what??
The freakin speakers work lol, so now for the first time in my life the narrator is actually useful for me
thank you very much

[LinkTheFusky]

how do I make it work with opera GX so I can make it read out long paragraphs

[LuisPerez-coci]

Does this work on 3rd party apps? Like if you're playing a game you downloaded. Does it also read the text?

[elninoson]

how do you read an article on the page with other wording you dont want read out on the sides?

[jhomer]

how do you get it to read a full screen of text with out stoping or having to drag your mouse over it the whole time

[greenfrog]

It only reads online websites for me. How can I get it to read images or recognize text?

[firemouth]

It's off but it's still playing. How do I get it off.

[seanjohn]

Would this work on subtitles on films?

[BillieCraftRoom]

Helpful for my dyslexia too, for me I only turned on the first button, then I can use ctrl + windows key+ enter. to turn it on and off, as I don't need it permanently on.

[Anewedition]

Bro i really want the voices u have but i dont have them in my pc, so how to get em?

[MyCents]

I'm not visually impaired or have any problems using my computer's visual UI.
I just read really slowly, so when I study I ike having my textbooks in live text PDF format, or just text documents, highlight the text, and have the computer read it to me.

How do I do that? On Mac it was super easy to set up... but this... is just a hot mess! I don't need Narrator to read out every single thing I mouse-over. I only need it to read highlighted text upon my command (on Mac I highlighted text and hit ctrl-alt-s). This mouse-over narration would have been acceptable if it wasn't for the fact that when I go into my text document, live text pdf, etc, all Narrator does is to read the document name, and nothing else.

[CindyBarrymore]

What does it read if you have more than one screen on? I ask because I find that the Narrator is reading one of the screens from an app I have open, but I also have other windows open. But it continues reading from a screen I'm not currently working in.

[dr.fitprofessor]

Actually, I think this is a good lesson for the rest of the world about what we the visually impaired go through to live in this world. Personally, I have to use text to speech on almost every device that I have. This video was only a little over 5 minutes long and the channel host was already losing his mind. Lol. However, the problem that he was experiencing is actually easily fixable. I call this problem digital tourette syndrome. When the voice narrator endlessly babbles on to no end. When one experiences this problem all you really have to do is press the control key and it silences the voice. It is quite difficult to do a tutorial on an application when you don't understand even it's basic functions. This kind of looks like a video for the sake of making a video. There are far too many things left out.

[ROSITALJ]

question, how do you do a video like this with voice over and being in control of screen? Thanks for the help!