ReadSpeaker, tools for listening to course content in Canvas
ReadSpeaker provides text-to-speech tools so you may listen to files or areas of your online class. This includes webReader and docReader.
Outcomes:
After this tutorial you will be able to: Utilize the ReadSpeaker tools found in Canvas anytime you want to listen to content.
Table of Contents:
webReader: How to listen to areas of Canvas:
ReadSpeaker's webReader is great for listening to Canvas, whether it's course navigation links, buttons, images, or plain text. You have two ways to activate the tool.
Listen to an entire area:
To get started, locate and click the webReader icon on any webpage in Canvas. This is a white square with a blue speaker icon inside.

The button will change and say listen. Click the green triangle on the right of listen and it will start to read content located on the page.

The menu will expand giving you ways to customize your listening experience. Let's go through the options!
- Locate additional customization settings.
- Pause/Start button.
- Stop button.
- Skip ahead or go back.
- Adjust volume.
- Change reading speed.
- Close webReader menu entirely.

Listen to a specific area:
To get started, locate the webReader icon on any webpage in Canvas. This is a white square with a blue speaker icon inside.

Next:
- Highlight the content you would like to be read aloud. A menu will appear.
- Click "Listen" from the list of options. You will start to hear a voice reading the highlighted text.

docReader: How to listen to content inside a document in Canvas.
ReadSpeaker’s docReader allows you to listen to documents uploaded to a course. These often look like links and can be found within things like your assignments.
To get started, locate and click the webReader icon on any webpage in Canvas. This is a white square with a blue speaker icon inside.

Look out for the blue icon docReader icon
that appears at the end of a file's name.
Clicking the docReader icon
opens a preview of the file with numerous tools to listen and read it through your web browser. Watch the video for an overview of using docReader:
Supported Document Formats:
- Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, and Excel spreadsheets.
- PDF.
- Rich Text Format.
- ePub digital ebooks.
- Apache OpenOffice / LibreOffice presentation, spreadsheet, and documents.