Read&Write for Education Product Updates

June 2023

What's new?

• Read&Write for Google Chrome: Texthelp folder for Collect Highlights, Vocab, Voice Notes and Practice Reading Aloud
  A new Texthelp folder in Google Drive and OneDrive is now used to store all documents and audio recordings created when using Read&Write. You’ll see subfolders for the following features: Collect Highlights, Vocabulary, Voice Notes, Practice Reading Aloud.
• Read&Write for Google Chrome: In-product link to Texthelp Academy
  A new button in the Read&Write menu now takes you to the Texthelp Academy, for access to videos, how-tos and other product resources.

May 2023

What’s new?

• New Speech-to-Text Service
  Read&Write now has access to a new Microsoft speech to text service, which can be enabled as a fallback in place of the current, built-in Windows speech recognition.
  A support article is available which explains how to make this switch.

What’s improved?

• Practice Reading Aloud - Student recordings are now saved in their Google Drive or OneDrive, and they can type in the teacher’s email to share the recording via standard Google Drive or OneDrive share flow
• Talk&Type now uses the same dictation service as the web toolbar
• Screen Masking default color of the reading light has been changed to transparent
• New analytics events to show Talk&Type usage more clearly

March 2023

What's new?

• New Trinity Irish voices now available

What's improved?

• Punctuation commands (new line, period, comma, etc.) not working on web and in Word Online
• Dual-color highlighting and Check It underlines broken due to Google Docs update
• Collect Highlights and Vocab broken due to Google Docs update
• Talk&Type keeps dictating after turning feature off, due to conflict with Desktop Support extension
• Focus issues preventing Play, Stop and Pause from being toggled on
• Toolbar freezing when using Text to Speech and Prediction to read word suggestions

February 2023

Hotfix for Canvas, PowerSchool and other sites (Version 2.1.59) - (February 9)

What's fixed?

• This update resolves an issue with Canvas, PowerSchool and several other sites formatting issues due to Read&Write extension

Google Docs fixes and updates (Version 2.1.58) - (February 6)

What's new?

New Icelandic text to speech voices added

What's improved?

Improvements to Talk&Type in Google Docs:

This update provides a tighter integration between Google Docs Voice Typing and the Talk&Type button on the toolbar, to resolve issues with the feature continuing to transcribe your text after clicking the microphone button to turn it off.

What's fixed?

• Text to speech not working in Google Docs, due to recent Google Docs update
• Practice Reading Aloud getting stuck when trying to send recording
• Reading alt text in Google Docs incorrectly
• Issue where you can’t highlight a word beside another highlighted word

January 2023

New Microsoft sign-in (Version 2.1.48) - (January 9)

What's improved?

This update includes a new Microsoft sign-in experience, which resolves an issue with the Microsoft sign-in screen that previously allowed students to bypass web filters using the Sign in with Github option.

The new Microsoft sign-in method no longer allows this, and also provides a smoother experience with fewer login prompts.

What's fixed?

• Issue with Dictionary window not resizing correctly when WriQ is installed

December 2022

Hotfix for MathJax support (Version 2.1.32) - (December 5)

What's new?

• This update resolves an issue with crashes on multi-frame sites that use MathJax

November 2022

MathJax Support and other bug fixes (Version 2.1.31) - (November 30)

What's new?

• Read&Write can now be used to read math equations and content created using MathJax.

What's fixed?

• Read&Write toolbar blocked in Microsoft Teams
• Highlighters not working in Word Online
• Equatio alt text repeating when there are multiple images in a document
• Audio Maker not using selected voice
• Switching between Google and Microsoft sign-in sometimes causes toolbar to flicker

Bug Fixes (Version 2.1.15) - (November 16)

What's fixed?

• Hovering over prediction suggestions causes text to be read in other places like document, dictionary window and picture dictionary window
• Issue with Simplify on specific website
• Talk&Type not working on Chrome OS version 90

October 2022

Hotfix (Version 2.1.9) - (October 26)

What's fixed?

• Issue with toolbar crashing for certain locales.

Hotfix for Microsoft sign-in (Version 2.1.8) - (October 25)

What's fixed?

• Issue with Microsoft sign-in not working when not signed into Chrome browser.

Reading Equatio in Word Online and Selectable Definitions, Images and Translations - (Version 2.0.7) - (October 17)

What's new?

Read Equatio math in Word Online:

Math equations and other STEM content created with Equatio in Word Online can now be read aloud by Read&Write. Just select the math and click the Play button.

Copy and paste definitions, images and translations:

You can now select text or images from the Dictionary, Picture Dictionary and Translator windows in order to copy and paste. This is helpful for those users who may want to take only specific dictionary definitions or translations and put them into a Doc, Slide or other file.

What's fixed?

• Simplify page not displaying content correctly on specific websites
• Issue with Hover Speech on Macs
• Prediction window covering your text when using a large font size
• Fix for text being deleted due to Quill editor on specific website

September 2022

Hotfix for Analytics update (Version 2.0.57) - (September 16)

What's fixed?

Fix to add analytics on startup and resolve issue with license requests.

Hotfix for Grammarly compatibility (Version 2.0.55) - (September 5)

What's fixed?

Fix for compatibility issues with Grammarly and displaying errors in both products.

Hotfix for Google Docs update (Version 2.0.54) - (September 1)

What's fixed?

Fix for issue caused by Google Docs update impacting text to speech, dual-color highlighting and other functionality.

New Voices:

New voices have been added for the following languages: Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian

Ability for admins to configure default settings:

Admins can now push out default settings for users via Google Admin Console or Group Policy. They can configure a json file to set defaults like the text to speech voice, language, prediction settings, dark or light mode, and more. These defaults will apply for all new users when they first install Read&Write.

What's improved?

Microsoft sign-in:

We made some improvements to Microsoft authentication so it works more smoothly and remembers your login for longer.

What's fixed?

Various issues in Google Docs caused by recent Google Docs updates, including:

• Text to speech repeating the first sentence of a document
• Dual color highlighting not displaying
• Not reading Equatio math alt text correctly
• Check It underlines not appearing

June 2022

More customer fixes and improvements - (Version 2.0.33) - (June 6)

What's improved?

Improved experience in Google Slides:

We made some improvements on the backend to the Google Slides toolbar, which means a better, smoother experience using features like text to speech and prediction in Google Slides.

What's fixed?

• Issue with reading alt text including Equatio math, due to Google Docs update
• Several Screen Masking issues resolved:
  Settings now apply automatically when you make changes, including typing in the number fields for opacity or heigh
  Now works in Word Online and D2L Brightspace
• Fix for Dictionary, Picture Dictionary and Translator not displaying correctly on Mindomo
• Fix for issues with text to speech on individual words in Word Online
• When typing in a Google Doc, clicking Play would not read the last sentence typed unless you move your cursor
• New language not immediately applying to the settings menu when you change your language setting
• Voice Notes screen not appearing correctly when WriQ is installed
• Dictionary, Picture Dictionary and Translator not working with Check It when hovering over word suggestions
• Hover Speech not working in Bookshare
• Voice Notes not inserting when using Read&Write in non-English languages
• Issues with Speak As I Type and Talk&Type not using correct language in Google Docs, Google Slides and Word Online
• Read&Write toolbar auto-launching on Sharepoint and Google Docs home page
• Toolbar not opening for new users when creating a new, blank Google Doc
• Alt text on web pages not reading when selecting and clicking Play (this was reported on OSSLT online exam)
• Issue with Check It defaulting to UK language on first use
• Month of license expiration date not appearing on About page
• Dictionary definitions and images could not be dragged into Google or Word docs

May 2022

More customer fixes and improvements - (Version 2.0.21) - (May 17)

What's fixed?

• Dutch localization issues with Collect Highlights and Vocab on certain websites
• Toolbar in Epub Reader not fitting on screen
• Toolbar icons not appearing correctly on TAFE NSW website
• Docked toolbar scrolling down the page in the latest version of Chrome
• Speak As I Type not working in Word Online
• Speak As I Type sentences only read after a period, but not with question mark or other punctuation

Hotfix - (Version 2.0.18) - (May 6)

Fix for an issue where Read&Write was breaking the Insert Image feature in Google Docs, Slides and Jamboard.

More customer fixes and improvements - (Version 2.0.17) - (May 3)

What’s changed?

Support for Chrome 88 and above

What’s fixed?

• Toolbar auto-launching after closing in Google Docs and Canvas
• Some settings not persisting after upgrade
• Continuous reading not working on certain sites
• Conflicts with WriQ- reading Equatio math, Voice Notes feature
• Conflicts with Grammarly installed
• Dutch localization issues
• Incorrect link when collecting highlights from Simplify page
• Prediction window flashing open and closed while typing
• User experience issues with Voice List and other dropdowns
• Talk&Type not working in Docs on Mac
• Feature switching not turning off highlights when set to false
• Text to speech reading words with apostrophes as “undefined”
  

April 2022

More customer fixes and improvements (Version 2.0.5) - (April 14)

What's fixed?

• Dual-color highlighting not appearing when reading in Google Docs (due to Google Docs update)
• Talk&Type getting out of sync in Google Docs (partial fix)
• Web toolbar opening in tabs when not clicked
• Prediction setting to follow the cursor not working
• Check It not showing grammatical errors

The release of the rewrite (version 2.0) (Version 2.0.1) - (April 6)

This release introduces the new and improved Read&Write for Google Chrome version 2.0. This brings Read&Write up to comply with Google’s newest security and performance standards for Chrome extensions (Manifest V3), provides more support in more places, and includes some popular feature requests based on customer feedback.

What's new?

1. More support in more places

Read&Write now works in more Learning Management Systems, websites and other third party environments. This includes:

• D2L Brightspace
• Canvas new Quizzes

6. Additional new features by popular request:

• Setting to turn on/off read aloud of word suggestions in Prediction and Check It
• New voices added - Hebrew, Catalan, Ukranian
• Web Search feature now uses your selected default search engine

What’s improved?

Check It support in Google Docs:

This restores Check It support in the new version of Google Docs.