Text to speech

[TheHelpLabs]

Dear Google Support Team,

I am writing to express my strong dissatisfaction regarding the continued absence of a built-in "select to speak" feature in Google Docs. This limitation significantly hinders my ability to use Google Workspace effectively for work, and I understand this sentiment is shared by many users.

As a lecturer, I rely on my work laptop, where installations and add-ons are strictly blocked by my institution's IT policies. This means that proposed workarounds, such as third-party extensions, are not viable solutions for me or many others in similar professional environments. It is concerning that a fundamental accessibility feature like text-to-speech, which even older software like Microsoft Word offers, is missing from Google Docs. Previously, pasting text into a comment in the Docs app allowed for text to be read aloud, but even this workaround no longer functions.

In an era where increasing screen time is leading to a rise in vision impairments, neglecting such a basic accessibility feature is not only a significant oversight but also borders on discrimination. As a paying customer, I expect Google to provide inclusive tools. The current situation, where users cannot have text read to them without relying on restricted installations or add-ons, is simply unacceptable for a company that prides itself on innovation.

I urge you to rectify this issue immediately. There should be a built-in "select to speak" feature with natural-sounding voices, available and fully functional across both the Google Docs app and desktop versions. Customers deserve better consideration and access to basic functionality.

Sincerely,

The Help Labs Consultancy

[icrew]

This site is made up of Google Workspace admins from around the world. Google themselves doesn’t participate much here. 

I’d urge you to contact the IT helpdesk at your institution—I’m very confident they can help. (I’m confident because I’m on the team that runs Google Workspace for a major research university, and I know how we’d react.)

Also, Google Docs does support most commonly used text to speech accessibility tools, such as JAWS, used by folks who have vision-related disabilities. See https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6282736?hl=en for all those details. 

Hope that helps, at least a little,

Ian

[TheHelpLabs]

Thanks for telling me Google are not really in this forum, it should come
as no surprise that I got the link from Google chat support who told me
this was the place to post. I thought it was more of their nonsense.

-And sadly no, my IT department is having no add ons or installs of any
kind. They do not even use Google, they are obsessed with Word and TEAMS,
that is why any text to speech feature has to be built into Google docs and
not need add ons or installs.

Honestly, I do not know what Google are doing with this. It is basic
functionality, I could not care less why a billion dollar company is making
excuses for not providing simple inbuilt tools.

sigh.

Thanks anyway. Have a good day.

[icrew]

You might want to post this to the Feature Ideas section here. Doing so will allow it to be upvoted by others and possibly considered as a future feature enhancement.

If you do not already have access, you need to request it first. See https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/custom/page/page-id/Workspace-Feature-Ideas-FAQ for how to do that.

Once you have access, go to https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/gh-p/workspace-ideas-group . There, you can upvote and comment on any similar idea, or post a new idea.

If you are submitting a feature idea, be sure to explain the problem that you're trying to solve with the feature idea, not just the idea itself. For example, saying "when my users are trying to do 'A', they often get confused by the fact that the buttons to do 'X' and to do 'Y' look quite similar to each other, which leads to this unintended consequence" is far more likely to get fixed than a feature idea that just says "change the color of the button 'Y'".

Cheers,

Ian