Google is adding a bunch of new features to the Reading Mode feature in Chrome. You will soon have the option to listen to articles and also initiate reading mode in Google Docs documents.

Google Docs Support

Support for Google Docs documents is the latest addition to the Read Aloud panel in Chrome. In a newly added experimental flag, the Chromium tab explains the feature thus:

Reading Mode Google Docs Integration: Allows Reading Mode to work on Google Doc.

You open a Google Docs document, ask Chrome to display it in the Reading Mode panel. Simple.

Things become interesting when we connect the newly added Read Aloud feature.

Reading Articles Aloud in Chrome

Chrome’s Reading Mode recently got the ability to read articles aloud. You can open an article in reading mode and then ask Chrome to read it aloud in a machine generated voice.

To make Chrome read an article to you, click the Play icon on the reading mode panel. This is an experimental feature, so things may not work all the time.

After Chrome starts reading the article aloud, you can control the speed and the voice used.

Pick a voice that suits your style and listen to long articles offline.

Summary

I use Pocket, a service and app that downloads articles for offline reading. It has had a spot on my phone’s home page for a very long time. As someone who reads very slow, but wants to read a LOT, Pocket’s text-to-speech listen mode is my favorite.

It is exciting to see Google adding such a feature to Chrome. It is going to be extremely useful with the Google Docs integration. I can listen to long Google Docs documents without sharing it with a third-party app or service.

However, I am cautious and will not switch to Chrome’s Reading Mode just yet. Who knows when Google will kill this feature too?

Source: Chromium Gerrit.