Make your computer speak: Part 5: Text-tospeech on mobile devices
What is this about
This is the fifth and final post in a 5-part series on making your computer speak using Textto-Speech technology. The five parts are:
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Part 1: Getting started
Part 2: Free speaking software
Part 3: Commercial speaking software
Part 4: Text-to-speech voices
Part 5: Text-to-speech on mobile devices
You can get an overview of the whole series, including links in this mind map.
In this fifth part, we will have a look at how to make your smartphone or tablet speak.
Mobile systems all come with built-in high quality text-to-speech which means that they can
start speaking to you out of the box. On the other hand, the selection of text-to-speech
software is not as extensive as on the desktop.
Mobile operating systems
There are two major operating mobile systems:
1. iOS (by Apple) runs iPhones and iPads (many apps do not work on both iPad and
iPhone)
2. Android (by Google) run most other smart phones and tablets (most apps run on
both tablet and phone)
iOS and iPad are incompatible with each other so each section will have two subsections.
Note: There are other mobile operating systems you might find on phones or tablets but
none of them are common enough to deal with in detail. The most common alternative is
Microsoft’s Windows Phone which is available on all Nokia’s smart phones. I do not have
one to test but here’s a link to a text-to-speech app.
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Built-in text-to-speech functionality
Both Android and iOS have high-quality built in voices that any program can use to make
text speak.
Both systems also have special accessibility modes that make every text on the device be
spoken out loud. They can be activated in the Settings under ‘Accessibility’. This mode is
called VoiceOver on iOS and TalkBack on Android. Under this mode, any text you touch on
the screen is read out. This means that you have to double tap when you want to activate
buttons or screen areas.
VoiceOver and Talkback are specically designed for Blind and Partially Sighted users. See this
video on how they work.
VoiceOver and Talkback are the only way you can listen to books in the Kindle Apps on
both iOS and Android.
Text-to-speech in books and documents
The most common need on a mobile device is to listen to a long document or an e-book.
Many e-book and PDF readers include text-to-speech functionality. Let’s look at the most
common ones for both operating systems.
Android Apps
There are many apps that will let you listen to documents.
E-book readers
Google Play Books (preinstalled on all Android devices) has a ‘Read out loud’ function built
in, which reads the whole book. However, it’s not very easy to pause and jump around
during play back. Google Play Books is also available on iOS.
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The best text-to-speech implementation in an e-reader is the TTS+ Plugin for FB Reader. It
puts all the controls at your finger tips. You can pause, rewind and fast forward the speech,
using simple buttons. Unfortunately, FB Reader does not work with books locked by Digital
Rights Management.
PDF Readers
My favourite PDF reader EZ PDF Reader has text-to-speech functionality built-in with great
controls for navigating while the text is being read out. It’s not free, but if you deal with
PDFs a lot, it’s definitely worth £2.50. It is also available for iOS.
General text-to-speech voices
Talk – Text to Voice
Talk is an app in which you can paste any text to be spoken. It’s also the best free app that
will let you share any website to be read out loud.
Talk is also the only free mobile app that can export text into an audio file (in the WAV
format). This is not a feature that’s in high demand on mobile devices since the main reason
to convert text to an audio file is to be able to listen to it on a mobile device.
VoxDox
VoxDox supports a variety of formats and sources of documents. It will even read in the
background. It relies on an online service for conversion of documents which means it
sometimes takes time. Also, the interface can be a bit confusing and cumbersome.
It is free to download but requires in-app purchases. At the time of the trial, a life-time
membership was offered at a discount of £8.99 from the usual price of £63.66. The
premium version will also include OCR and saving text as MP3. I would recommend trying it
for a while and comparing it to other apps before spending this much money.
CapturaTalk
CapturaTalk is specially designed for the needs of dyslexic learners. It has a built in browser,
text editor and will even read out text you take pictures of with your phone camera.
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However, all this functionality does not come cheap at £49. A 2-week free trial is available.
CapturaTalk for iOS also exists but comes without a trial.
Alternative voices
If the default voices installed on your device are not to your liking, you can download and
install alternatives (both free and paid).
 Ivona (number of voices, free during beta period)
 SVOX (free and paid voices, paid voices £1.99 each)
 Cereproc (voices at £1.19)
iOS Apps
iBooks
All iPhones and iPads come preinstalled with iBooks. There is no ‘Read out loud’ option but
iOS will ‘Speak’ any text you’ve selected. Otherwise, you have to use VoiceOver to read
books.
NaturalReader Text-to-Speech
NaturalReader (which I recommended as a great starter app on the desktop) is also available
on iOS. The free version will read documents in a variety of format in the default voice.
If you want more voices, you can pay £6.99 for the PRO version or buy individual voices.
Voice Dream Reader
Voice Dream Reader will read out text from a variety of text formats (from Word documents
or PDFs to e-books). It styles itself as ‘the most accessible’ reader and it has the most
comprehensive and intuitive text-to-speech interface I’ve seen. It will import documents
from a variety of sources including Dropbox and online book repositories.
Voice Dream Reader costs £6.99. Free trial version is available as Voice Dream Reader Lite.
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Apps iOS also available on Android
I’ve already mentioned when an Android app is also available on iOS. For ease of reference,
here’s a complete list.
 Google Play Books
 EZ PDF Reader
 VoxDox
 Captura Talk
What’s next
Enjoy listening to text on your mobile phone or tablet. Next time, we will talk about
podcasts.
Note: Watch this video before you download and install any free software.
Dominik Lukes - Education and Technology Specialist
Registered Office: Dyslexia Action House, 10 High Street, Egham, Surrey TW20 9EA. Dyslexia Action is the working name for Dyslexia Institute
Limited, a charity registered in England and Wales (No 268502) and Scotland (No SC039177) and registered in England and Wales as company
number 01179975.
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