ClaroRead Chrome Release Notes

Also applies to ClaroRead Edge.

• Chrome Web Store
• Edge Add-On

Version 35

ClaroRead 35.3.1 released 3 January 2023.

• Hotfix for Google Docs.

ClaroRead 35.2.2 released 9 November 2023.

• Dutch users with a premium version of ClaroRead Chrome/Edge will now be able to access OrbitNote from the extras dropdown.

ClaroRead 35.1.2 released 7 November 2023.

• Hotfix for Google Docs which fixes issues with highlighting.

ClaroRead 35.1.1 released 1 November 2023

• Changes to the licensing UI in the account tab.
• Using a premium domain for your browser profile or using the login form to licence ClaroRead Chrome will remove the licence key entry form.
• Now when users enter a licence key the premium section will remain visible but will now show a delete button to delete the licence key and will display the licence key itself.

ClaroRead 35.0.14 released 4 October 2023.

• Hotfix for Google Docs which fixes issues with highlighting.

ClaroRead 35.0.12 released 21 September 2023.

• Fixes some voices (Vocalizer) not speaking.

ClaroRead 35.0.10 released 15 August 2023.

• Improvements to the analytics we collect: we have never tracked individual users, only aggregate data to improve our products, but the new analytics make tracking individual users impossible and users can now disable analytics entirely in their settings.

Version 34

ClaroRead 34.1.1 released 6 June 2023.

• Adds back in the ability to use a licence key to unlock all features.

ClaroRead 34.0.12 released 24 May 2023.

• New ScreenRuler option for screen tinting: follow the mouse around with a highlighting strip to reduce distractions so that you can more easily concentrate on reading and analysing text on the screen.
• More letter sounds for voices: you can make ClaroRead say “ah” “buh” “cuh” instead of “ay” “bee” “cee” when it speaks a letter, but until now this has only used a female voice. Now ClaroRead chooses a male or female voice that matches whether your main selected voice is male or female, so it is a smoother experience.
• Speech recognition now enters a full stop when you say “period”.

Version 33

ClaroRead 33.1.4 released 12 April 2023.

• Hotfix for an issue where PDF’s were crashing when the toolbar was switched off.

ClaroRead 33.0.7 released 19 April 2023.

• Added a 30 day trial for users who use the free version of ClaroRead Chrome/Edge for the very first time.
• The free version of ClaroRead Chrome now only supports click and play and selecting voices from a list of free voices.
• If you are logged into Chrome/Edge with a premium domain email then the ePub Reader button from the extra’s menu will automatically log you into ePub Reader when clicked.
• Spellcheck now supports more languages (German, Spanish and French).

Version 32

Version 32.0.20 released 29 March 2023.

• Added an Automatic Language Detection feature. Switch your Browser language to Swedish or Dutch and you will enable the Language Detection feature in ClaroRead Chrome settings. Make sure to have a Premium version of the ClaroRead Chrome toolbar activated to see this feature too.

Version 31

Version 31.7 released 15 March 2023.

• Improvements in Google Docs handling.

Version 31.6.1 released 13 March 2023.

• Improvements to network performance (reduction of traffic).

Version 31.5.10 released 2 March 2023.

• Fixed an issue with spellcheck all sometimes being very slow in Word Online documents.
• Fixed an issue where ClaroRead was leaving little highlights in words entered by word prediction in Google Docs.
• Minor translation changes for Dutch.
• Improved message when you try to input an invalid licence key.

Version 31.4.4 released 21 February 2023.

• Fixed Google Docs not working for some users (prediction, speech/play, spellcheck, speech recognition).
• Fixed images sometimes not appearing in spellcheck.
• If you have installed the SAPI5 TTS support on Windows BUT not installed any SAPI5 TTS voices then ClaroRead might not speak. Now it will still speak even if you have not installed any SAPI5 TTS voices (but you should either install both SAPI5 TTS support AND a SAPI5 TTS voice, or install neither.)

Version 31.3.9 released 3 February 2023.

• Added more language names to your voice selection list to make it easier to find a voice you want from the long list.
• Fixed a problem with spellcheck progressing to the next word correctly.
• Reduced ClaroRead’s browser resources when not being used.

Version 31.2.6 released 23 January 2023.

• Fixed speak with mouse select not reading all the text.
• Fixed dictionary results displaying correctly.
• Fixed buttons for translation.
• Fixed spellcheck hanging when checking the word “bin”

Version 31.1.13 released 9 January 2023

• Fixes to Word Online support.

Version 31.0.14 released 19 December 2022

• Fix for some older Chromebooks.

Version 31.0.13 released 16 December 2022

• ClaroRead now supports the latest version of Google Chrome Manifest, Manifest V3. You should see better and smoother performance.

Version 30

Version 30.0.1 released 16 November 2022.

• You can now use a local installed Windows voice we have provided (on Windows machines only!). This is good because when ClaroRead speaks it does not have to go over the network and use up your system resources, so you may find that it works better if you have any network capacity issues.

Version 29

Version 29 released 4 November 2022.

• You can now spellcheck the selected range, not just a single word or the whole document.
• Coloured highlighting for google docs (used to be just grey).
• Cool new ClaroRead icon!

Version 28

Version 28.1.15 released 8 October 2022.

• New settings screen makes it more like other Google Chrome extensions so it’s easier for users to find their way around.
• Updated English common corrections list so more spelling suggestions are made.
• Word Online is now included in the free offering.
• Ukrainian Lesya voice added.

Version 28.1.16 released 14 October 2022.

• Hotfix for ClaroRead Edge only: fixed broken icons in settings.

Version 27

Version 27 released July 2022.

• Compound Words (Swedish). Spelling errors that consist of two words that look correctly-spelled but really should be combined into one, like “straw berry”, are common in Swedish. The new Compound Word feature is available in Swedish only, and will show incorrectly-split words when using the Homophone Check and Spell Check feature in ClaroRead Chrome.

Version 26

Version 26.0.15 released 9 May 2022.

• Adding “spellcheck all” to Microsoft Word Online. Currently you can spell check a whole document in Google Docs, we’re also bringing that functionality to Word Online.
• Word prediction in Swedish now uses our latest updated and powerful prediction technology, built by world-class linguists to help you get the right work at the right time. This is Cloud-provided, so Swedish spellcheck will now need you to be online to work.
• Adding lots more “dyslexic-style” spelling corrections to our Swedish spellcheck service – again, this is online-only.

Version 25

Version 25.0.1 released 14 April 2022.

• Save to audio. Much like in ClaroRead for Windows you can now save your text selection to audio using the nearest appropriate voice. Go to Settings, Extras tab, and check Save To Audio to enable the feature. You will then have a new Save button on the toolbar: just select some text, click it, and you’ll get an MP3 to save and use as you wish.

Version 24

Version 24.0.2 released 28th March 2022.

• Currently the extension runs even when the toolbar is closed. Certain settings work such as prediction and the coloured overlay. We’re updating the toolbar so that when you close the toolbar everything is switched off.
• Performance improvements with how long it takes to extension to load on each page and become ready to go.
• We’ve improved the accessibility for users who rely on other assistive technologies, like screenreaders. Buttons and settings are all now accessible and properly written to comply with WCAG and other standards.
• ClaroRead Chrome now has a dark mode! Changing your systems preferred theme should automatically switch the way the extension looks

Version 23.2

Version 23.2.1 released 22 December 2021

• Updates to usage tracking.

Version 23.2.0 released 15 December 2021

• Updates to usage tracking.

Version 23.1

Version 23.1.5 released 6 October 2021

• Bugfixes and scanning.

Version 23.1.4 released 20 September 2021

Fixes for Google Docs reading.

Version 23.1.3 released 9 September 2021

• Fixes for Google Docs reading.

Version 23

Version 23.1.2 released 24 August 2021.

• We’ve improved our spellchecker to provide better results for Swedish: you’ll see the right word suggested more often. Spellcheck is super-important in Sweden, and combined with our word prediction and speech it makes ClaroRead very powerful.
• Google Docs is updating the way they display their documents so we’ve updated ClaroRead Chrome to handle this.

Version 22.3

Version 22.3.7 released 11 December 2020

• We’re updating our scan from screen feature to be more accurate.

Version 22.3.8 released May 2021

• Fixes for Google Docs reading.

Version 22.2

Version 22.2.2 released 6 November 2020

• Contains a bug fix for Google docs that prevented the users from typing correcting if echo sentences/words was enabled.

Version 22.2 released 22 October 2020

• We’re removing font awesome from the Chrome extension and replacing all the icons with images. This will allow for faster load times and a reduction in collisions with host websites.

Version 22.1

Version 22.1 released 6 October 2020

• We’ve improved the accessibility for users who rely on other assistive technologies, like screenreaders. Buttons and settings are all now accessible and properly written to comply with WCAG and other standards.
• Performance improvements with how long it takes to extension to load on each page and become ready to go.

Version 22

Version 22 released 27th of July 2020

• Making and capturing highlights. Highlighting passages in documents and then extracting them is super popular on Windows and iOS (in ClaroPDF) so we’ve brought this to ClaroRead Chrome. You can select and highlight passages in web pages (and only web pages for now), sort them and review them, then send them to a Google Docs document. To activate the Capture buttons turn on Capture on the Extras tab in Settings.
• The Overlay tab is now called Extras. Here you can control the settings for the screen overlay feature, but also the capturing features new in this version. We’re working towards having our ClaroRead Windows and Mac Extras all in ClaroRead Chrome, and this is where they will live!
• Improved next word prediction. Help with your writing by suggesting the next word you want.
• ClaroRead now favours your selected prediction dictionary in its suggestions.
• ClaroRead has improved phonetic prediction so it keeps checking phonetic options as you type more letters – this mean that “kat” suggests “cat”, where before “cat” would disappear when you got to “ka”.
• if a full stop is typed it is automatically moved to the end of the sentence. So “This is a sentence .” becomes “This is a sentence. ” without you having backspace: just keep typing and writing.
• Prediction now works in Word Online: spellcheck and speech recognition do not work here yet, and you have to type a space after each word. Prediction works fully in Google Docs.
• Prediction now shows (1) correctly-typed words, so you can see that you have written a valid and word, AND (2) shows a spelling correction for the word you have typed so far, so you can see the correct spelling for what you meant.
• Prediction can also show homophones, so if you type “their” you’ll see “there” and “they’re” suggested. Lets you know there are confusable words and pick the right one.
• Improvements to ClaroRead Chrome Swedish with a better corpus and three new prediction dictionaries for different school ages, so prediction matches the literacy level.
• We’ve added a quick link to the help page if you right-click on the ClaroRead icon in the toolbar in Chrome so you can get help easily.

Version 21

Version 21 released 15th of April 2020.

• Improved spellcheck for Swedish. More words right more often.
• Improved voice selection. We provide lots of voices in lots of languages with ClaroRead Chrome – we have users all over the world and can provide dozens of languages, even in the free version of ClaroRead. This can make it hard to find the voice you want in the long list. Now voices are grouped by language and dialect, and we’ve added flags to make it easier for people who find reading harder to find the language they want. Finally, we’ve re-ordered the voices so the voices you are likely to want to use are at the top. It’s easier to pick the voice you want and enjoy reading and proofing in ClaroRead Chrome 21.
• Oh, and we’ve added a button to let you test the voice!
• Reading (or math!) Most maths is found in web pages as images, with nothing actually readable: but some websites provide actual maths in the form of MathML or LaTeX, so we can read it out. ClaroRead Chrome 21 reads out maths it finds as you read through a web page, or you can point at or select the maths to hear it read aloud. In ClaroRead Chrome 21 it just reads the whole equation to keep it simple: if we find that people want to have lower-level reading (e.g. each symbol at a time) then we could look at that.
• More accurate scan-from-screen (updated training data in OCR engine).

Version 20

Version 20.2 released 29 November 2019

• Updated Swedish Prediction to be consistent with ClaroRead Windows

Version 20.1 released 4 November 2019

• Improvements to PDF file opening and handling invalid PDF files. If anything goes wrong with loading PDF files for reading, especially in Chromebooks, ClaroRead will simply pass the PDF to Chrome’s native PDF reading feature. This will mean that clicking Play will not work – you can’t read through the document. However, you can still speak you document: just select some text you want to hear and right-click, then select “Speak selected text” to hear it read aloud.

Version 20 released 19 August 2019.

• Additional second language option like ClaroRead Windows
• (Premium) Word translations in spell check for your other language
• (Premium) Pictures in spell check and prediction
• (Premium) Improved phonetic prediction
• (Premium) Additional high-quality voices

Version 19

Version 19 released 18 April 2019

• Additional subject-specific prediction dictionaries
• Improved base prediction dictionary
• (Premium) Additional Swedish TTS voices

Version 18

Version 18 released 4 December 2018

• (Premium) Speech Recognition
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

Version 17

Version 17 released 26 September 2018.

• (Premium) Spell Check and Homophone Check (English and Swedish languages)
• Norwegian prediction support
• Google Docs reading and highlighting improvements
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

Version 16

Version 16 released 1 June 2018.

• Changes to text highlighting in editable text areas. ClaroRead for Chromebook now works more like ClaroRead for Windows/Mac when working in editable text areas. Clicking on the text will no longer immediately highlight the current sentence, highlighting will begin when the play button is pressed
• New Sign in option allowing you to sign in to your ClaroRead Cloud account inside ClaroRead for Chromebook. This will unlock premium features if you have the appropriate licence key in your ClaroRead Cloud account
• Echo letter sounds enabled for Norwegian voices
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

Version 15

Version 15 released 8 March 2018

• (Premium) CereProc Swedish voice now available
• New toolbar and settings UI. Toolbar has a titlebar and close button that will allow you to turn off the extension without turning off all of the settings.
• New context menu speech option: Right Click -> Speak selected text
• Norwegian UI translations
• Bug fixes and performance improvements

Version 14

Version 14 released 30 November 2017.

• (Premium) Scan from Screen is now much faster to start up.
• (Premium) When you do Scan from Screen the text recognised is also copied into the clipboard so you can paste it into a new document.
• New users will have a new Welcome tab open up when they start Google Chrome with ClaroRead for the first time.
• You can now see your Google Domain in Settings. This is useful for configuring site licences.

Version 13

Version 13 released 3 July 2017.

• You can now find a Scanning/OCR button on a dropdown below the Scan from Screen button. This allows access to online document conversion using our ClaroRead Cloud OCR service. A ClaroRead Cloud account is required.
• Unlocking ClaroRead Chrome with a licence key requires assent to our EULA.
• ClaroRead Chrome will not load PDF files (it will leave that to Chrome) if ClaroRead Chrome speech options (“Click and Play”, echo, speak on mouse select, speak on mouse hover) are all turned off.
• ClaroRead Chrome Premium users will now find that their Premium features are still available offline.
• Final fixes to some PDFs not loading correctly

Version 12

Version 12 released 8 May 2017

• Fixes to some PDFs not loading correctly.

Version 11

Version 11 released 4 May 2017.

• ClaroRead Chrome now reads back Google Slides with highlighting.
• Prediction now supports phonetics in Swedish, so “sj” brings up “just”.
• Prediction now also supports French, German, Spanish, Polish, and Arabic.
• Predictions remain visible even if you keep typing past three characters (so long as they match).

Version 10

Version 10 released 24 February 2017.

• (Premium) Microsoft Office 365 Word now has reading with highlighting.
• (Premium) Swedish Emil, Filip, Emma and Freja voices added to Premium.

Version 9

Version 9 released 10 November 2016

• System administrators can now manage ClaroRead Chrome centrally for their users with a special control panel. Site policies
• You can now buy a ClaroRead Chrome Premium subscription through the Google Web Store.

Version 8

Version 8 released 2 August 2016.

• Choose your text highlighting colour.
• Word prediction.
• Click-to-play now speaks until you click Stop.

Version 7

Version 7 released 22 March 2016

• Scan from screen (Premium only).
• Read Google Docs annotations.
• Unlock Premium features with licence key.

Version 6

Version 6 released 25 February 2016.

• Read PDF files with highlighting.
• Read Google Docs extensions with hover or select.
• Unlock premium features (high-quality TTS voices) for Google for Education and Work site licence customers.

Version 3

Version 3.1.4 released 14 September 2015

• Improved reading in Google Docs and other pages.

Version 3.1 released 14 August 2015

• Echo words in general web pages and Google Docs
• Echo sentences in general web pages and Google Docs
• Renamed from “ClaroSpeak” to “ClaroRead”
• Highlighting in Google Docs.
• Made public in Chrome Web Store.

Version 3 released 21 May 2015

• Speed control for online server voices
• Echo characters in Google Docs

Version 2

Version 2 released 20 April 2015

• Speed control on Web Speech API voices
• Speech with synchronised sentence highlighting (Click and play)
• Coloured overlay, user-defined colour and opacity

Version 1

Version 1 released May 2014

• Web Speech API voices
• Online server voices
• Speak on mouse select (including Google Docs)
• Speak on mouse hover
• Echo characters while typing
• Use letter sounds instead of characters (Swedish only)