Speech Central: Text to Speech

Category

Description of App

Text to speech app that can read aloud web pages, browse web pages and RSS feeds (allowing you to enqueue the reading of the articles while headlines are read), documents and e-books for you while you are doing something else. The app can create a speech or audio file from any page that you browse inside the app or by pasting a link of an internet page from any other app. The text to read and its language will be detected automatically. It can also read Microsoft Word (.docx), PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF and many other text file and e-book formats (.epub, .fb2) and turn them into the speech. By using the app you'll build your knowledge base in an easy way. Each read item is automatically moved to the Old Articles which supports powerful search and filtering features. Those texts are always available offline. Annotation tools are there to mark an item as favorite, or bookmark an important paragraph in it. You can use app with any of supported languages for text to speech on macOS. Latest macOS features including the Touch Bar are supported. Reinvent your life, if you are busy cut the time you spend in front of the screen and listen to the news articles, documents and e-books while you are doing housework or even commuting and jogging (by using the audio files). For people with visual impairments and disability like dyslexia this can be a great assistive technology.

Version

1.0.6

Free or Paid

Paid

Version Of macOS App Was Tested On

10.12.5

Accessibility Comments

The interface is very easy to navigate and to use. The read text is visible, activating a section of it will start reading from that position. Longer operations will usually not make the entire application busy.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Other Comments

The developer is very friendly and is open to accessibility improvements.
This application is one of a few, and in my opinion the best-working one so far.

Developer's Twitter Username
@labsii

Recommendations

2 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Erion 7 years 5 months ago

Options

Comments

By cool cat on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 - 03:40

Don't know if the developer will see this but, is there a way when the headlines are being read... is it possible to send that particular item into the articles section right there right then. I know you can flick to it and send to articles. And question #2. Is there a way to get 1 voice to read the headline and have a second voice to read the summary in the headlines section? It would be nice to differentiate those thing with a female and a male voice or 2 different sounding voices. s. I think the second question is a longshot.

I finally bought the paid version today. I use this app alot.

I don't think that this could happen because of the update - they are all tested by both me (I am the developer) and the App Store team (and they test every version for a few hours as far as I can tell).

It may happen that somehow the data got corrupted. However simply reinstalling the app won't help, but you may use some free apps to delete everything like this one available on the Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/delete-apps-uninstaller/id1033808943 and then reinstall the app.

By cool cat on Friday, August 24, 2018 - 03:40

Hi! I don't really remember posting that. I fixed the problem somehow. I posted in the wrong directory aswell .I meant to post in IOS app directory. I think I was new then and made that mistake.

By Johann on Tuesday, May 24, 2022 - 03:40

Why is the macOS app still not optimized for Apple Silicon?

By mr grieves on Friday, June 24, 2022 - 03:40

I tried this for the first time yesterday, and when it worked it seemed pretty good. However, I did find sometimes that the speech just stopped at times. After a while, I managed to notice that some words were changing at the bottom of the app, so I think it was reading it out but just not speaking it.

Has anyone else noticed that? It might be because I was air-playing to a Sonos speaker at the time, and maybe not a problem with the app. I think the problem was because I was reading a reference manual that required me to stop and practice. So the phone would go to sleep, and I'd wake it and do a magic tap (or go back to the app and use the play button) and sometimes it just wouldn't speak any more. Usually I just quit the app, but I think one time after I left it for a few minutes it did suddenly start reading again.

[Edit] - damn, sorry just noticed this is for the Mac version of the app, so seems like I've posted in the wrong place!