NaturalReader is text-to-speech app that reads webpages, documents, and eBooks aloud to you with our quality, natural-sounding voices. NaturalReader is an essential tool for those with dyslexia and other reading difficulties.
Music or TV is great to play in the background while you do other things, but what if you have articles you want to read instead? Reader Steve shows us how to make OS X read to you with a keyboard shortcut.
If you don't have time to set aside for immersing yourself in that cool article or blog post, just keep this keyboard shortcut around:
Sometimes I just don't feel like watching TV, or I'm in the middle of an article and want to finish it while I make breakfast in the morning. I found that OS X's text-to-speech feature is actually a really nice way to keep reading uninterrupted, and most people probably don't even realize how easy it is.
Just open up System Preferences, go to the Speech pane, and hit the Text to Speech tab. Check the 'Speak selected text when the key is pressed' box, and set the key to something simple (I use Command+Shift+R). Then, when you're browsing the web, just select the article you want read and hit your shortcut to hear it read out loud. II usually send articles to Instapaper first, to avoid it getting confused by images, ads, and other formatting. I've found the default voice of Alex is best, and isn't distractingly computer-sounding.
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I tried it out, and was pretty surprised—I could actually listen to articles this way, at least some shorter ones (after about 10 minutes I imagine I might go crazy). Try it out for yourself and let us know if you like it in the comments. And, if you're a Windows user, check out previously mentionedBalabolka for a similar experience. Thanks, Steve!
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Air Text App
Read Aloud is a program that will read text aloud. It has two main interfaces, one for entering Web addresses that the program will browse to and read the text on aloud, and another tab labeled Textpad where you can paste text into a window to be read out loud.
We tested both aspects of the program. The first Web page we tried Read Aloud on was a Blogger page. The page mostly comprised text, and the program did very well reading it. The default voice is 'Microsoft Anna,' a pleasing female voice. The voice is a little halting at times, but we could understand everything easily nonetheless. Next we tried a Web page for a local cafe. The program read it well. Read Aloud doesn't read the Alt tags of photos, which something we'd like to see added. We tried some more complex Web pages like Facebook and Twitter, and Read Aloud worked with them, but the busy layout of Facebook made the reading chaotic. We were impressed that program did a good job reading the Twitter page, however. The Textpad feature is handy and quite functional. We copied some text from an e-mail into it, and the program translated it into speech flawlessly.
Text To Speech Mac
Read Aloud is free. It doesn't have any Help file that we could find but is easy to figure out. It performs a unique service that would be a great benefit to users with vision problems or reading difficulties, but Read Aloud is fun for anyone to use.