Hotkeys, and how to change them

The defaults

As shipped. Nothing here is locked.

Changing one

1. 1

   Step 1

   Open settings

   Open Speakybara (double-click the tray icon), choose Settings in the sidebar and click the Shortcuts chip at the top of the page.

2. 2

   Step 2

   Click the field you want to change

   The field turns blue and counts down from 8. During those seconds Speakybara listens directly at Windows, so keys that other programs normally swallow still arrive. Those keystrokes go nowhere else.

   The countdown exists so your keyboard is never left in a listening state. Esc stops it immediately.

3. 3

   Step 3

   Press the combination you want

   That is the whole interaction: nothing to type, nothing to save. The new combination is written straight into your settings.

   Speakybara—☐✕

   Speakybara

   Home

   History

   Models

   Settings

   Not signed inFree plan

   Settings

   Every change applies right away and is saved.

   GeneralReaderSpeechLanguagesText recognitionShortcutsYour own actionsAbout

   General

   Start with Windows

   Starts hidden in the tray.

   Sound when capturing

   A short click, a chime, or a .wav of your own.

   Camera click

   Sound volume

   70%

   Copy a capture to the clipboard as well

   With Capture and read aloud, the text is on your clipboard right away, ready to paste.

   Keep history

   Stored on this PC. Nothing is ever sent anywhere.

   Keep a small preview with each capture

   A thumbnail of the piece of screen you captured, so History shows you where it came from. It stays on this PC and goes when you delete the item.

   App language

   Same as Windows

   Reader

   Reader mode

   What appears on screen while reading aloud.

   Full

   The Speakybara window opens on the text, with the sentence being read highlighted and the playback controls.

   Compact

   One line and the controls, in a corner of your screen.

   Subtitle

   One line along the bottom of your screen, like subtitles on a film. Hover it for pause, and to open the text in Speakybara.

   ♪

   Hidden

   Audio only. Nothing appears on screen.

   Position of the compact reader

   Full uses the Speakybara window and the subtitle bar has a place of its own.

   Bottom right

   Highlight the sentence being read

   Mark the word on the page itself

   A yellow marker follows the reading over the part of the screen you captured, and moves along when you scroll. Click a marked word to read on from there.

   Keep the reader above other windows

   Speech

   Mute other apps while reading

   Music and videos go quiet while Speakybara reads, and come back afterwards.

   Speed

   1.0×

   Volume

   100%

   Unload local voice after

   Local (Piper) only. Frees about 60 MB of memory.

   90 s

   Languages

   Detect language automatically

   Per selection and per sentence.

   When unsure, use

   Dutch

   Languages to recognize

   28 available. Windows needs the language pack for text recognition.

   Dutch ✕English ✕Add

   Not every service speaks every language. Google Cloud covers the most languages and sounds the best.

   Say English words in Dutch text the English way

   Local voice only. Edge and Google already do this.

   Open english-words.txt

   Text recognition

   Recognition language

   Automatic

   Enlarge before recognizing

   Higher = small text reads better, slightly slower.

   2.0×

   Check words

   A misread word is replaced by the nearest word in the word list, the way Word does it. Names and codes are left alone.

   Open eigen-woorden.txt

   Clean up text with AI before reading

   A small AI model joins lines that boxes and columns broke up, fixes typos from text recognition and does not read long links out in full.This takes a moment before the reading starts.

   Shortcuts

   Click a field and press the keys you want. Esc cancels. The arrow restores the default.

   Capture and read aloud

   Ctrl + Alt + S

   Capture and copy text

   Press your keys… 6

   Capture and ask AI to

   The answer is read aloud instead of the text.

   ExplainCtrl + Alt + U

   Capture and then choose

   Nothing is read out yet. A little menu asks what to do with the text.

   Ctrl + Alt + Q

   Read clipboard

   Ctrl + Alt + C

   Pause / resume

   Ctrl + Alt + P

   Stop

   Ctrl + Alt + X

   Repeat last

   Ctrl + Alt + R

   Your own actions

   Write your own instruction and it shows up next to Explain and Summarize.

   You have not made any actions yet.

   New action

   About

   Speakybara 1.1.0

   Free and open source. Windows 10 and 11.

   WebsiteOpen app folder

   Screens come from the app itself.

4. 4

   Step 4

   Let it check your choice

   Speakybara refuses a combination without Ctrl, Alt, Shift or Win, because a bare key would fire while you type. It also tells you when another Speakybara function already uses the combination, and when another program has claimed it.

Worth knowing

• Ctrl+Alt+E is the quiet one: it puts the recognised text on your clipboard without reading anything aloud.
• Double-clicking the tray icon does the same as Ctrl+Alt+S, which is handy while you are still learning the shortcut.
• Ctrl+Alt+R reads the last text again. Repeated sentences come from the local cache, so with an online voice they cost no characters.
• Esc also closes the selection frame if you change your mind halfway through dragging.

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