Do you need a software solution that reads in spoken words the text of your emails or your just finished new contract? Would you like to have your computer read out loud any text document you open on your screen (including web pages, emails and documents)? Then you might find what you are looking for in this text-to-speech tools mini-guide.

Photo credit: tlegend

Many text-to-speech tools are available today that allow you have any text-based file read out loud by software which automatically converts your text-based content into audible bits. You can use text-to-speech software to “listen” to documents, email, pdf files and web pages: text is read by synthetic voices and in some tools you can even switch between different spoken languages.

Wikipedia states:

"Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech.

A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware.

A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech."

In this mini-guide you can find a number of text-to-speech tools that you can install on your PC (Windows only). Many of these can be especially helpful to people with reading difficulties or handicaps, since they often provide keyboard controls.

As the following does not pretend to be a fully comprehensive list of all text-to-speech tools available online, you are welcome to suggest additional tools and services by using the comments section that you will find at the bottom of this article.

Here some of the most interesting text-to-speech tools I have been able to find in my research:

NaturalReader

NaturalReader is a text to speech software with natural sounding voices. This software is easy to use and can convert any written text such as MS Word, Webpage, PDF files, and emails into spoken words. NaturalReader can also convert any written text into audio files such as mp3 or wav for your CD player or iPod.

Link: http://www.naturalreaders.com/

ClaroRead

ClaroRead provides the reading and writing support tools to give computer users independence. By making the computer speak any text with a human voice, text documents can be proofed out loud and web pages, e-mails and any other text that can be listened to.

Link: http://www.clarosoftware.com/

Verbose

Verbose is a text to speech program which will read aloud any text or save it as mp3. After you have installed this text reading software you can assign a system wide hot key. Then whenever you want Verbose to read the text on your screen just push that key and the software will read it aloud. Verbose can also save your text documents or emails to mp3 or wav for you to store them on your Pocket PC or MP3 player, such as an iPod, so you can listen to them on your way home.

Link: http://www.nch.com.au/verbose/

Sayz Me

Sayz Me is a free text-to-speech reader for Windows. Text is typed in or copied from the clipboard and then read aloud. Words are highlighted as they are spoken. Select voice, adjust reading speed, voice pitch, font, font size and color. Hides in the system tray. Very simple and easy to use.

Link: http://www.datafurnace.net.au/sayzme/

ReadPlease

ReadPlease reads any text you see on your screen, also text via Windows clipboard from any program (copy/paste). Additionally, ReadPlease reads e-mail emoticons such as :) or :(. You can control reading from system tray. You can also adjust voice speed (rate) and check out low vision color option.

Link: http://www.readplease.com/

1SpeechSoft Power Text To Speech

1SpeechSoft Power Text To Speech is an award-winning text-to-speech player that lets you listen to documents, e-mails or web pages instead of reading on screen. You can listen on your PC or save text to MP3 or wave files for listening later. Even better, if you have a portable audio device you can take your text as MP3 files with you anyplace you need to go.

Link: http://www.1speechsoft.com/

NeoSpeech Voice Text

NeoSpeech Voice Text software solution for generating extremely natural-sounding voices from text input. VoiceText is available in configurations for a wide range of embedded devices, desktop and network/server applications, making it the most flexible high quality TTS solution on the
market today. VoiceText is available in US English, Korean, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.

Link: http://www.neospeech.com/product/technologies/tts.php

Nextup TextAloud

Nextup TextAloud uses voice synthesis to convert text into spoken audio. Listen on your PC or create MP3 or WMA files for use on portable devices like iPods, PocketPCs, and CD players. You can directly open Word, PDF, and HTML files and offers toolbar plug-ins for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Outlook.

Link: http://www.nextup.com/

Alive Text to Speech

Alive Text to Speech is a text-to-speech software to read text in any application, and convert text to MP3, WAV, OGG or VOX files. Alive Text to Speech also enables you to listen documents, emails, news articles or web pages without conversion. It supports schedule converting. It also allow advanced users to finish the conversion of text to mp3 with Command lines. You can change the different voices and the readout speed for conversion or listening, and download more voices from Internet.

Link: http://www.alivemedia.net/textspeech.htm

Text to Speech Maker

Text to Speech Maker is a text-to-speech player that lets you listen to documents, e-mails or web pages instead of reading on screen.It also allows you to convert text to WAV,MP3 or VOX files for listening later with your portable MP3 player. This product supports copy/cut to clipboard and paste from clipboard, which makes it easy for you to read any text souce, such as emails, web pages, documents, and so on.

Link: http://www.xrlly.com/text-to-speech.htm

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