Explayn — highlight to understand

Highlight anything on any page for an instant explanation, or have it read aloud with each word lit up as it is spoken.

Highlight any word, sentence, or paragraph on any page. An Explain button appears next to what you selected, and one click puts a short explanation right there — in a small card anchored to the words it is about. No new tab, no copy-paste into a chatbot, no losing your place on the page. WHAT MAKES THE ANSWER USEFUL Explayn sends the block of text your selection sits inside along with the selection itself. That is why "this", "that", and an acronym introduced three sentences ago come back explained the way this page used them, rather than in general. FOR THINGS YOU CANNOT HIGHLIGHT A formula set as an image, a chart, a diagram, a scanned page — highlighting those gives you nonsense. Press Ctrl+Shift+S (⌘⌃S on a Mac) and drag a box around it instead, and Explayn reads the picture. Ctrl+Shift+A (⌘⌃A on a Mac) takes the whole visible page. Already took a screenshot the normal way? Paste it onto the page with Ctrl+V, or drag the file in. OR HAVE IT READ TO YOU Press Ctrl+Shift+R (⌘⌃R on a Mac) and Lucid reads what you highlighted aloud — or the whole page, if nothing is highlighted — and lights up each word as it is spoken, on the page's own text. The sentence being read stays bright and the rest stands back, so your eyes always have somewhere to be instead of drifting off while the audio slides past. It can also read words it has to photograph first: a scanned page, a slide, a figure, anything a browser will not let you select. Space pauses, Esc stops, and the player has the speed control. Two kinds of voice, and Options chooses: neural ones, which are synthesised by Explayn's endpoint and arrive with the exact timing of every word in them, or your own computer's, which need no network and send nothing anywhere. If a neural sentence cannot be fetched mid-reading, your computer's voice finishes the passage and the player says so. NOTHING IS SENT UNTIL YOU ASK Highlighting text sends nothing anywhere. The button that appears is drawn locally by the extension, and the selection only leaves the page when you click it, press the shortcut, or use the right-click menu. A selection in a password field is the one thing Explayn will not look at by any route. Reading aloud sends what is being read only in the cases you would expect: when the words had to be read out of a picture, and when you have chosen a neural voice, which is synthesised by Explayn's endpoint a sentence at a time. Choose one of your own computer's voices in Options and a reading contacts nothing at all. FOLLOW-UPS, IN THE SAME CARD Simpler. Example. Why it matters. Or type your own question and keep the thread going. Esc closes the card, and so does clicking anywhere. IT COSTS NOTHING TO USE Explayn ships with a shared key that is rate limited. Past that, Options lists two free routes and links you straight to them: bring your own key from a model provider that issues one with a free allowance — no card, about a minute — or run a model on your own machine, where nothing you highlight leaves your computer at all. Explayn Pro ($6/month) is for people who would rather not do either: no key to fetch, no hourly ceiling, screenshots on a model chosen for you. It is entirely optional and the extension is fully usable without it. KEEP IT ON SCREEN Chrome closes a popup the moment focus moves. "Keep open" hands Lucid to the side panel instead, which survives changing tab and window, and carries your recent lookups. SETTINGS WORTH KNOWING - How explanations sound: plain English, explain-like-I'm-12, or technical - Answer language: match the page, or pin one of eleven - What a highlight does: offer a button, explain straight away, or nothing at all - Which voice reads aloud — neural or your computer's own — and how fast - Sites Lucid should never run on, one hostname per line Privacy: https://www.explayn.com.au/privacy