Read a shared page your way
The Reader menu on every shared page: read it aloud, translate it, see the short version, ask the page a question, pick the width and follow a presenter.
Every page someone shares with you has a small Reader button, shaped like an open book, in the top-right corner. It opens a short menu of ways to make the page easier to read. You need no account and nothing installed. Read aloud, Translate, Short version and Ask this page work on your device and send nothing to Yardmaster (an online voice is the one exception, below). Following a presenter asks Yardmaster which slide is showing, and a comment is sent when you post it.
Only your page width and your Short version choice are remembered, and only on your own device. On a phone the menu slides up from the bottom.
Listen to the page#
Choose Read aloud and the page is read to you, one sentence at a time, using your device's voices. The sentence being read is highlighted and the page scrolls along with it.
A bar at the bottom lets you pause and play, skip to the next or previous sentence, change the speed (from 0.75x up to 2x), pick a different Voice, or close it. If you switch to another tab for more than a minute, it pauses and waits for you to press play.
Read it in your language#
Choose Translate in the Reader menu.
Pick the language you want (yours is at the top of the list).
Watch the page change a few sentences at a time.
Press Show original to put the page back exactly as it was.
The translating happens on your own device, so the page's words are not sent anywhere. If the page's language is guessed wrong, correct it in the From box. Read aloud keeps working and uses a voice for the new language.
See just the key points#
Some designed pages come with a short version written by the person who made them: the answer and a few key points. Choose Short version and the page shows just the top and that short card. A small Short version tag in the top-left corner has a Show full page button to get everything back. Your choice is remembered on your device for that page.
Ask the page a question#
Choose Ask this page and a drawer opens. Questions the author wrote appear under Questions from the author; press one to see their answer. Or type your own question (up to 300 characters) and press Enter. The drawer lists the three places in the page that best match it under From this page, each with a Show me button that lights up that sentence and takes you to it.
If your browser can run a small AI model on your own device, a short answer written from those passages appears above them, marked Made on your device, with a Stop button. Nothing you type and nothing on the page is sent anywhere.
Pick the page width#
On designed pages (Kit Shares), Page width offers Narrow, Normal and Wide. Your choice is remembered in your browser and used on every designed page you open after that, including ones published before this existed. It only changes what you see. If your browser does not allow saving (for example a private window), the page stays at Normal.
Comment on a sentence#
On a page with comments on, the Reader menu also has Comment on a sentence. See Get comments on a share for how sentence comments and their pins work.
Follow a presenter#
When someone is presenting a slide deck, your page moves to their slide by itself and a small Following the presenter tag appears. Turn the switch on the tag off to look around on your own; Follow the presenter in the Reader menu turns it back on. See Present a deck from your phone.
The Reader menu also holds the reader extras the page offers, such as a guided tour or a poster: see Reader extras.
Read aloud skips what is not writing. Code blocks, number tables and hidden text are skipped; code inside a sentence is read along with it. If your browser cannot read aloud, or a page has only a few words, the choice is not shown.
Online voices. Read aloud uses your device's voices, so the text stays on your device. If your device only has online voices, the list marks them as online, and the sentences go to that voice provider.
No on-device translation yet? The Translate panel says so and points you to your browser's own Translate option (in Chrome, right-click the page and choose Translate; in Safari, use the page menu in the address bar; in Edge, the translate icon in the address bar).
Translated formatting. Bold words and links inside a translated sentence show as plain text until you go back to the original.
Short version made on your device. If a page has no short version but your browser can make one, the menu offers Short version (made on your device): a small panel of key points your browser writes from the page, labelled as made by your browser because it can miss things. If the browser needs to download its helper first, the panel says so and you can cancel.
Ask this page. If the browser has to download its model first, it tells you and waits until you say go.
Where the drawer opens. On a computer the drawer opens over the right side of the page; on a phone it covers the screen until you close it. If read aloud is playing, Show me lights the sentence for a moment and never interrupts the reading.
Short pages and other languages. The choice is hidden on a page with only a few words, and it works best on pages written in English; in other languages it still finds exact words.
For page makers. Ask the agent to add a FAQ (up to 12 questions with short answers taken from the page). It is not shown in the page itself, only in the Ask this page drawer.
Where the menu is missing. Pages that are games, shared series and embedded views do not have the Reader button yet.
Related
- Restyle a Kit sharePick one of seventeen looks, switch on immersion, add your brand, and change the look of a published Kit share without changing its link.
- Ask your agents by voiceHear answers read aloud, ask about a session without opening it, and send a spoken question to an agent that is working.