Blair Aloud · by SoftBlair

Install Blair Aloud

Three steps: add her to your browser, pin her to the toolbar, open her side panel. Then enter your key and you're set. Prefer a guide? SoftBlair will walk you through it.

You'll need a licence key: buy it once, from $59.99. See prices

SoftBlair at a radio table, mid-sentence at her microphone, with two friends who have a wooden radio and an old computer monitor for heads

Add her to your browser

Blair Aloud works in Chrome, on Windows, Mac, Linux and ChromeOS.

Pin her to the toolbar

Chrome

  1. Click the Extensions button (the puzzle piece) at the top right.
  2. Find Blair Aloud and click the pin beside her name.

Open her side panel

  1. Click her icon in the toolbar. Her side panel opens on the right of the window.
  2. If it doesn't, click the browser's side panel button and choose Blair Aloud.
  3. In the panel, under Not activated yet, press Enter licence key. Her settings open at Licence: paste the key from your thanks page into Licence key and press Activate.

Before you enter a key, press Open the sample page in the panel: all four functions work there, so you know she's working. Buying is what unlocks her everywhere. Later, her settings are always one click away: All settings, shortcuts and licence at the bottom of the panel.

Want a different voice? In her settings, under Voice, pick from her 94 voices: natural US and UK voices, or a voice from the 1960s to the 1990s. She starts with Heart.

Her keyboard shortcuts

Every button in her panel has a shortcut too. On a Mac, Blair uses Control instead of Alt, so the Option key keeps typing special characters.

Blair Aloud keyboard shortcuts on Windows, ChromeOS and Linux, and on a Mac
What it doesWindows, ChromeOS, LinuxMac
Read pageAlt+Shift+RControl+Shift+R
Read selection (or the paragraph under the pointer)Alt+Shift+SControl+Shift+S
Voice commands on or offAlt+Shift+VControl+Shift+V
Live captions for this tab on or offAlt+Shift+LControl+Shift+L
Push to talk: hold, say a command, let goAlt+Shift+SpaceControl+Shift+Space
StopTap CtrlTap Control
Show numbers on buttonsAlt+Shift+NControl+Shift+N
Next heading (previous: add Ctrl, on a Mac Option)Alt+Shift+HControl+Shift+H
Read the text in the image under the pointerAlt+Shift+IControl+Shift+I

The full list is in her settings, under Shortcuts. The first four can be changed in the browser's shortcut settings.

Then test everything with SoftBlair

Allow the microphone, then try reading, read on demand, a voice command and captions on a short test clip. She ticks each one off.

Open set-up helpPrices
SoftBlair dancing in the street at night with a brass band behind her