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jbenny · 10-04-2007, 09:28 PM

You may want to look at TextAloud from NextUp.com. It is inexpensive and if you buy it with the AT&T TrueVoice Crystal/Mike voices, you can get the program for $10 off. I bought it recently. I also bought the NeoSpeech Kate/Paul voices from the same source. Although the AT&T voices are much better than the the voices that come with WinXP, I think the NeoSpeech voices are even better sounding. From reading the forums at NextUp.com, it appears that quite a few dyslexics are using their software.

Not to sound like a commercial, but TextAloud can read a TXT, HTML or PDF file. It can also read text pasted from the clipboard. It also comes with plugins for IE and Firefox, for reading web pages. You can also save the audio as a WAV or MP3. All in all, a nice program for the money. Oh, they are coming out with a major upgrade soon. If you buy the current version, you get the new one free.

You can also get some voices by Acapela and RealSpeak that sound more lifelike. I did some testing with some of these other voices and found two things that I didn't like. First, they all seem to have too much silibance for my taste. Second, they mispronounce works far more often than either the AT&T or NeoSpeech voices.

BTW, you can use the AT&T and NeoSpeech voices with any other voice software, including MS Reader. The Acapela and RealSpeak voices sold by NextUp.com are only useable with their software.

One other company that may be worth a look is Cepstral. They have a wide selection of voices and some of them sound pretty good. I still think that NeoSpeech and AT&T are the best, but it doesn't hurt to listen to them all.

To hear samples of all of these voices using your own text, Google on the word "demo" and each of the voice product names, in turn (TrueVoice, NeoSpeech, Acapela, RealSpeak, Cepstral). You will find web pages where you can enter short passages and hear what they sound like.

If you need foreign language voices, all of these companies have a selection. For some reason, NeoSpeech only has oriental voices (I know they are currently owned by a Korean company, but come on). I was hoping they had Spanish, but they don't.

10-04-2007, 09:28 PM	#9
jbenny Addict Posts: 323 Karma: 358 Join Date: May 2007 Device: Tablet PC and Nokia N800	TTS You may want to look at TextAloud from NextUp.com. It is inexpensive and if you buy it with the AT&T TrueVoice Crystal/Mike voices, you can get the program for $10 off. I bought it recently. I also bought the NeoSpeech Kate/Paul voices from the same source. Although the AT&T voices are much better than the the voices that come with WinXP, I think the NeoSpeech voices are even better sounding. From reading the forums at NextUp.com, it appears that quite a few dyslexics are using their software. Not to sound like a commercial, but TextAloud can read a TXT, HTML or PDF file. It can also read text pasted from the clipboard. It also comes with plugins for IE and Firefox, for reading web pages. You can also save the audio as a WAV or MP3. All in all, a nice program for the money. Oh, they are coming out with a major upgrade soon. If you buy the current version, you get the new one free. You can also get some voices by Acapela and RealSpeak that sound more lifelike. I did some testing with some of these other voices and found two things that I didn't like. First, they all seem to have too much silibance for my taste. Second, they mispronounce works far more often than either the AT&T or NeoSpeech voices. BTW, you can use the AT&T and NeoSpeech voices with any other voice software, including MS Reader. The Acapela and RealSpeak voices sold by NextUp.com are only useable with their software. One other company that may be worth a look is Cepstral. They have a wide selection of voices and some of them sound pretty good. I still think that NeoSpeech and AT&T are the best, but it doesn't hurt to listen to them all. To hear samples of all of these voices using your own text, Google on the word "demo" and each of the voice product names, in turn (TrueVoice, NeoSpeech, Acapela, RealSpeak, Cepstral). You will find web pages where you can enter short passages and hear what they sound like. If you need foreign language voices, all of these companies have a selection. For some reason, NeoSpeech only has oriental voices (I know they are currently owned by a Korean company, but come on). I was hoping they had Spanish, but they don't. Last edited by jbenny; 10-04-2007 at 09:32 PM.