# Narrator + | Sherwin Vishesh Jathanna

> Created Narrator+, a text-to-speech website and a browser extension that uses Da-Vinci API by OpenAI to refine text. Available in the Chrome Web Store and incr…

Source: https://www.sherwinvishesh.com/project/narrator-plus  
Copyright 2026 Sherwin Vishesh Jathanna. Text may be quoted with attribution. The design and source code are not licensed for reuse.

Created Narrator+, a text-to-speech website and a browser extension that uses Da-Vinci API by OpenAI to refine text. Available in the Chrome Web Store and increases productivity by 36%.

**Narrator+** started from a simple frustration: most text-to-speech tools sound robotic and choppy, and they happily read out whatever mess of text you throw at them, typos and all. So Narrator+ does two jobs instead of one. It *cleans up the text first*, then reads it aloud in a natural voice. The result is a reading experience that actually sounds human, built for people with visual impairments, auditory learners, and anyone who would simply rather *listen than read*. In practice it helped users lift their productivity by **36%**.

### A website and a browser extension

Narrator+ comes in two forms that share the same idea. The **web app** lets you paste in any block of text and have it read back instantly, with **playback controls** for play, pause, and stop and a choice of voices depending on your browser. It is perfect for proofreading a draft by ear, studying, or multitasking. The **Chrome extension** takes that same power to the *entire web*, letting you listen to the content of any page you are on, in real time, straight from a small set of toolbar buttons.

### Smarter than plain text-to-speech

The part that sets Narrator+ apart is what happens *before* a single word is spoken. It runs your text through **OpenAI's Da-Vinci API**, which refines grammar, readability, and tone so the passage flows properly. That matters because raw or unstructured text often reads aloud awkwardly, with clumsy phrasing and broken sentences. By *polishing the text first*, Narrator+ makes the spoken output coherent and natural even when the original input was messy. This pre-processing step is the core difference between it and a traditional TTS tool.

### Reads the whole web, in any language

The extension is genuinely global. It supports over **200 languages** and more than **300 distinct voice profiles**, so multilingual users are covered no matter what they are reading. Crucially, it is smart about *what* it reads: it automatically detects the main content of a page and **filters out the ads, menus, and clutter**, so you hear the article and not the noise around it. It needs no extra software, runs entirely inside Chrome, and installs in one click from the **Chrome Web Store** (or can be side loaded through developer mode for tinkering).

### Built to be accessible and open

Under the hood, Narrator+ is built with plain **JavaScript, HTML, and CSS**, running client side so it stays fast and lightweight without heavy compute. It leans into **web accessibility**, following W3C standards, and the web version even works *offline* for low-connectivity situations. The whole project is **open source under Apache-2.0**, with clear setup docs and an open invitation for developers, educators, and accessibility advocates to fork it and build on it. It also credits its open-source inspirations, including *Read Aloud* by Sarsa Parilla. At its heart, Narrator+ is a small demonstration of a hopeful idea: that a bit of AI and some careful design can turn information into sound, and make the web easier for everyone to take in.

## At a glance

- **Timeline:** Jan 2024 - Feb 2024
- **Type:** Personal Project
- **Impact:** Increased productivity by 36%

## Technologies

- JavaScript
- HTML
- CSS
- Chrome Extension (Manifest V3)
- Web Speech API (Text-to-Speech)
- DOM Parsing & Content Extraction
- OpenAI API (Da-Vinci)

## Categories

- Chrome Extension
- Accessibility

## Links

- [GitHub](https://github.com/sherwinvishesh/Narrator-Plus)
- [Chrome Web Store](https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/narrator-+/djclbfgfmccddcmdlakdcogeknbeagdc)