Listen, Focus And In Short: Read Aloud And The Bar Under Every Post

Three tools work right where people read: Listen, which reads the page aloud, Focus, which keeps one paragraph bright, and In short, a plain-language summary under the title. All three sit on the reading bar at the top of your posts and pages, and in the panel.

Listen:

Listen reads the page aloud using the speech voices already built into the visitor's phone, tablet or computer. The browser does the speaking, so there is no AI, no key, no per-page fee and no running cost to you, and the plugin does not send the page text anywhere.

How a visitor uses it:

1. Press Listen on the reading bar, or Listen to this page in the panel.
2. The article is read one sentence at a time. Each sentence is highlighted and scrolled into view as it is read, and the bar shows Reading aloud, sentence 3 of 19.
3. The button changes to Pause. Press it to pause, and press it again to carry on.
4. After the first press every sentence can be clicked. Click one and reading starts from there.
5. Alt + L (Option + L on a Mac) starts or pauses Listen from anywhere on the page.
6. Leaving the page stops the voice.

Listening to a selection:

Select any text on the page and a small Listen to this button appears beside it. Press it, or press Alt + L, and just that text is read. Selections in menus, headers, footers and form fields are left alone.

Speed and voice:

In the panel, the Speed slider goes from 0.6 to 1.6 times normal speed, in steps of 0.1, and starts at 1.0. The Voice picker lists the voices on that device for the page's language, or every voice when there are none for it. Both choices are remembered. The voices on offer depend entirely on the visitor's device and browser.

Long paragraphs are handed to the voice in short pieces, so they are read all the way through in every browser, including Chrome, whose own voices otherwise stop after about fifteen seconds.

Language:

Listen reads in the language your page declares, which WordPress sets from Settings, General, Site Language.

What is read:

Listen reads the article text the plugin finds on the page: paragraphs, headings, list items and similar blocks. It skips the panel, the reading bar, the In short box, buttons and form fields. On a page where no article text is found, the Listen buttons are hidden. If it reads your menu instead of the article, set the article selector described in The Reading Tools Tab.

When a browser cannot speak:

Some browsers offer speech but never actually speak. The usual ones are the built-in browsers inside the Facebook, Instagram and Messenger apps. If nothing has started after about two seconds, Listen stops and tells the visitor in plain words that this browser will not read aloud, and to open the page in another up-to-date browser.

The reading bar:

On single posts and pages, and on single views of any other post type you tick on the Reading tools tab, a small bar sits at the top of the article, just under the title on most themes. It holds:

• Listen, when Listen is switched on.
• Aa, which steps the text size up to Larger and Large and then back to Normal.
• Your button word with the access symbol, which opens the full panel.
• Focus, which switches Focus on one paragraph on and off.
• In short, which shows or hides the summary, when the post has one.
• A reminder: Alt + A for every option.

On screens 820 pixels wide or narrower the bar is hidden, because everything on it is in the panel behind the Accessibility button.

Landing pages:

With the ResultsAiX Theme, a page on its Landing (No Chrome) template carries no reading bar, so offer and checkout pages stay free of distractions. The Accessibility button is still there, with every tool inside it, Listen included. To bring the bar back on those pages, switch on The Listen bar on Landing pages too on the Reading tools tab.

In short:

In short is a plain-language summary shown in a box under the bar: two or three simple sentences saying what the page is about and what the reader can do with it. It helps anyone who finds long pages hard going, and anyone deciding whether a page is for them.

Write an In short:

1. Edit any post or page of a type that gets the bar.
2. Find the In short (plain-language summary) box in the side column.
3. Write two or three plain sentences, up to 600 characters, and save the post.

Leave the box blank and no In short shows on that post. Visitors can hide or show it with the In short button on the bar, and their choice is remembered. You can switch In short off for the whole site on the Reading tools tab.

In short with AI:

With an AI key (Accessibility PRO with a key on its AI tab, or the ResultsAiX Theme's AI) the box also has a Write it with AI button. And with Write In short with AI at first publish switched on, a post published for the first time with the box empty gets one written for it, once. It is never rewritten behind your back. See PRO: Fix With AI, From The Picture Itself.

A real example:

Maya writes Raised Beds You Can Reach From A Chair and adds an In short: How to build raised beds you can reach from a chair or a stool, with the heights, widths and path sizes that work. Use it to plan beds that are easy to plant, weed and pick from. A reader presses Listen while she makes a cup of tea; the post is read to her sentence by sentence, each one highlighted. She clicks the sentence about path widths to hear it again.

Tips:

• Keep In short to two or three sentences. Say what the page is about and what the reader can do with it.
• Test Listen in your own browser once, so you know which voices you have.