Sometimes, information technology's better to listen than to read. When you walk, bike, or drive, for instance, it's safer to keep your eyes focused on the world around you.

Text-to-speech (TTS) offers an culling to listening to music, podcasts, or audiobooks. TTS can be a bang-up way to catch up on articles yous intend to read. For instance, Mozilla'due south read later on service, Pocket, includes the ability to listen to articles.

TTS solves a slightly unlike problem than the assistive vocalisation capabilities bachelor for the major platforms, such as Android TalkBack, iOS VoiceOver, Chromevox, Windows Narrator, and Mac VoiceOver. These tools typically read everything on a folio–content plus navigation.

The post-obit 4 TTS apps specialize in reading articles and documents yous choose. While all of these apps provide text-to-speech capabilities, each app serves a slightly dissimilar set of needs. Some apps show the text as it is spoken, while others offering a diverseness of voices.

All of these apps work on iOS, and support the capability to share an article from the browser to the app via the native iOS sharing system functions. Chiefly, as of July 2017, all four of these apps are nether active development: The iOS app for each was updated in June or July 2017 at least in one case.

1. Motoread

(iOS, Chrome, and Safari desktop extensions)

I think of Motoread every bit a podcatcher for manufactures: Send an article to the app, then listen to saved articles later. In that location are Chrome and Safari extensions that let y'all add an article to your Motoread list from your desktop browser with a click. (Every bit of early July 2017, an Android app is listed equally "coming soon".)

The app reads manufactures in a single vocalisation, although you may adjust the playback speed. You lot can also choose to display the text of the article equally you mind. The app is complimentary, although you can upgrade (for $1.99/calendar month or $19.99/year) to go the ability to add together an unlimited number of articles.

2. Vocalism Dream Reader

(iOS, Android)

Vocalization Dream Reader shows the text of the article being read, and highlights each word equally it is spoken. Since the app was originally developed equally an assistive tool, you tin can arrange the size, font, spacing, and color of the text displayed during playback. Voice Dream supports adjustable playback speeds, and allows you to customize pause time between sentences, too. Yous can select from several organization voices, and set a preferred speed, pitch, and volume for the voice. You can also add documents to listen to from Dropbox, Google Bulldoze, Evernote, and other sources.

Vocalisation Dream Reader typically costs $14.99, and a wide pick of additional voices are available for purchase, too–at a cost of upwardly to $4.99 per voice.

3. Spoken communication Central

(iOS, macOS, Windows, Android)

Speech Central works on more platforms than whatever of the other apps hither, with apps bachelor for iOS, macOS, Windows, and Android (although the app is bachelor from Amazon, not the Google Play shop). It besides supports the ability to read text from other formats, such as Discussion, PDF, and more than. On iOS, the app supports the organisation voices, although you can adjust the vocalism pitch, too equally the default 1x speed to be slightly faster or slower.

Speech Central shows the text, with a subtle colored vertical line displayed along the left side of the text of the paragraph as it is spoken. The app volition announce the calculated reading time for longer articles, which may be useful if you lot listen while traveling, and you can modify playback speed (betwixt .8x and 2x default speed). Spoken language Key also offers the power to shuffle voices, so you don't have to listen to several manufactures in a row read with the same synthesized vocalization.

The desktop platform apps are non free, at $6.99 for macOS and $9.99 for Windows 10, although the mobile apps are free, with an optional one-fourth dimension $four.99 upgrade that gives you the ability to add together unlimited articles.

4. Audiobook Maker

(iOS)

Audiobook Maker was the simply app of the iv to properly pronounce the words "live" and "livestream" with the default vocalism setting. All the other apps pronounced the four letter word "live" incorrectly for the context, as if it rhymed with "give." Audiobook Maker pronounced it correctly: "Live" rhymes with "hive."

Audiobook Maker also was the only app with the option to display ane give-and-take at a time, centered in the screen. It also offered an option to highlight the word existence read, while showing the surrounding text, in an adjustable size font. As with other apps, you lot can arrange the speed, as well as select from several voices and languages.

Audiobook Maker development is all the same in process. For example, the app too includes the ability to use your camera to take a photograph of book pages to exist read. Only when I took a photo of a page from a book, I saw a "less than a minute remaining" message that never left. To exist off-white, the iOS app is named "Audiobook Maker – Early Adopters." That said, the core functionality of text-to-speech works and the app is free (as of July 2017).

Text to speech for developers

Information technology'southward also never been easier to add text-to-speech capabilities to apps. Several large firms provide text-to-speech API services, such equally Polly from Amazon, Bing Speech from Microsoft, and Text to Speech from IBM. In that location are smaller competitors in the field, like Responsive Voice, too. And search giants Google and Baidu have each released research papers that tout their progress toward increasingly natural sounding text-to-oral communication capabilities, called Deep WaveNet and Deep Vox ii, respectively.

Do you use text-to-speech to mind to articles or documents? If and then, what text-to-speech arrangement and/or app practise you use? And if you lot're a programmer, take you integrated ane of above API text-to-spoken language services into your app? If so, allow me know which service and why — on Twitter (@awolber) or in the comments below.