Some of the best ideas need real people using them before they are finished. Beta features let you try those ideas early, and tell us what is working.
Two of them are already on, because they simply make existing features work in more places. The other two change how something behaves, so they wait for you to say yes.
If Helperbird is managed by your school or workplace, your administrator decides which beta features are available. If a switch is missing or greyed out, that is why.
On by default
Each word lights up as it is read aloud, so it is easy to keep your place — in Reading Mode and when you read a selection. Pick your own highlight colour and see it on a live preview before you commit.
Helpful if you lose your place on long pages, or if you read along while listening.
On by default
Google Slides normally hides its text from Helperbird, and most class decks have downloading switched off. Open a view-only deck and Helperbird switches to the plain-text version, so your font, ruler, colour overlay and read-aloud all work.
Your browser's Back button returns you to the slides. Decks you can edit are never changed.
Off until you turn it on
Extends readable Slides to full-screen presentations. It is separate because swapping the view mid-presentation is not what everyone wants, so you opt in.
Needs Make Google Slides readable switched on as well.
Off until you turn it on
Use voice typing from the floating toolbar and your words go straight into the box you were already writing in — including Google Docs — instead of a separate panel you then copy from.
Helperbird shows you which box it is typing into, and it never dictates into password, payment or security-code boxes.
A beta feature works, and we use it ourselves — but it has not been in front of enough people yet for us to be sure it holds up everywhere. The web is a messy place, and a feature that behaves perfectly on one site can meet something strange on the next.
So beta features can change, move, or occasionally be switched off again while we fix something. If one of them starts misbehaving, turning it off in settings puts everything back exactly as it was.
They follow the same privacy rules as the rest of Helperbird. Nothing extra is collected because a feature is in beta.
Tried one and something felt off? Tell us what happened — beta feedback is the fastest way to shape what ships next.
Beta features graduate into the main feature list once they have proven themselves. You can follow every change as it lands.
