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TextAloud 2 Giveaway
$29.95
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — TextAloud 2

TextAloud reads text from email, web pages, reports and more, aloud on your PC.
$29.95 EXPIRED
User rating: 469 111 comments

TextAloud 2 was available as a giveaway on January 14, 2009!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$24.96 / month
free today
Your all-in-one solution for home theater entertainment!

TextAloud's unique Text to MP3 or WMA conversion can save your daily reading to audio files to download to your portable player. Listen to email, online news, or important documents while you exercise, work or commute. TextAloud is easy to learn so you can put it to work for you right away.

Everything is user friendly, from the help function to the VCR style playback controls. It has never been easier to keep up with the information you really need. Includes Firefox toolbar. Support for Natural Voices, Neospeech, Cepstral, Acapela BrightSpeech and Elan, and ScanSoft RealSpeak Voices.

System Requirements:

Win 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista; Minimum P200; 64MB RAM; 10MB Disk Space; Sound Card

Publisher:

NextUp Technologies

Homepage:

http://nextup.com/TextAloud/index.html

File Size:

3.25 MB

Price:

$29.95

GIVEAWAY download basket

Developed by MPCSTAR
Developed by VSO Software
Developed by Online Media Technologies Ltd.
Developed by Web Solution Mart

Comments on TextAloud 2

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#111

This product shows some promise, but to really use it...you DO have to have some good voice to reproduce sound that's relatively pleasing and easy to listen to. I thank those of you who took the time to provide USEFUL responses regarding the functionality of the software and some possible workarounds to identified issues.

Regarding the Omnipage solution. It was a good idea, but not fully implementable because the voices aren't available to for use by Talkaloud. ( The reasons are posted below and they were obtained from the developer.)

All in all, it's a decent program but the get the best use of it, you need to have some good voices. I've spent the last two days trying to use all of the free ones identified in this thread without success. They are free, but not available for use by this program. If there is a free solution, I'd love to hear it.

BTY, this is my first post, but I've been a long time fan of GOTD. You have gotten me to try a lot of programs that I would have normally never tried. I as a consequence have to restore by system once a year to ensure smooth operation, but I seen that as simply an annual tune up. Please keep up the good work.


Explination 1

http://www.nextup.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=690&sid=94177107d3f64f8f8c0c5b86e6b30bbc

PostPosted: Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:05 pm Post subject: Reply with quote
What I think is happening is ScanSoft has gone to a system where they put voices on the computer, but in a way that they aren't available to other applications through SAPI.
_________________
Ken White
NextUp.com
The Power of Spoken Audio
http://www.NextUp.com

Explination 2

There is a way around there restrictions on using their voices, if you are desperate for them. You have to have the following software:

- Omnipage Pro 14 (or better)
- Total Recorder

Omnipage Pro 14 installs some decent voices, not quite as nice as some, but good and different. The two english voices are Dave (American male) and Jane (British female).

Total Recorder is a shareware program that will record any sound that passes through the soundcard. Omnipage won't output to a wav file, but it will play the pages.

You have to open some image of text in Omnipage, have it recognize at least one page, then clear that in the text editor, paste in your text to play, set for speech mode, select voice, start total recorder, do it's settings, start it's recording, then tell Omnipage to play the full page. This is a 1x speed recording, but it does work.

Not really worth the effort. I wonder why the don't license their voices for Nextup.com?

Reply   |   Comment by Dr_who  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#110

text aloud is a great program....and it works in window7....i know this because i'm a beta tester!

Reply   |   Comment by HARMONATOR  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#109

TextAloud -- I can't believe that only a computer sound voice
is all that I can do, without paying for the voices!

-t

Reply   |   Comment by toby  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#108

To everybody comparing this to Narrator in Windows or Read Aloud in adobe reader - these can't save to MP3 and make an audiobook! This software can right inside the program. It seems though many are missing the point. The value is being able to create mp3 files so you are making an audiobook.

Reply   |   Comment by Chadman  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#107

#99, Just install the program and restart the system. You should now have a bunch of voice choices in the drop down menu of TA2.

Reply   |   Comment by lostinlodos  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#106

Cepstral's Callie voice is pretty good. Compared it to ATT&T, Acapela and Microsoft Mary and L&H/Nuance/Scansoft on W2K. Requires a local licensing server which sometimes hangs, but otherwise I liked this voice best.

Reply   |   Comment by blatz b  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#105

install ok, but just english voice:sam. therefore after 1 min. uninstall...:(((

Reply   |   Comment by sudisz  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#104

well textaloud is one of my personal favorite.

Reply   |   Comment by Audio Books  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#103

TO ALL - THE BAD NEWS

The problem with the desktop icon. I guess there were no responses to my itch b/c nobody else faced this issue. I should have been more descriptive in the highlighting of this problem - in that it wasn't an icon that anyone would relish sitting on his desktop - a square with a couple of dots, characterstic of the programs that the windows and all/any of the s/w cannot read.
Now for the baad news - there is no bad news.
I solved the problem myself. After all self help is the best HELP.

Reply   |   Comment by yyuosuff  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#102

#81,
Thank you Jay G very much, for your support.
Though i didn't try it as u have suggested - i did indeed uninstall through the normal process as available of the uninstall of the application itself. At a certain point the process asks for the installation CD to be inserted. Now, this AV is a three pc licensed s/w. It is obvious that only one person will have the CD and the other two my not have access to it, as in my case.
So, I press the cancel button instead of the OK button. The uninstallation proceeds from there on for a long time and it does seem that the exit is doing something to the pc - like a kick in the ass - which it does. Finally it comes down to the point where it asks u to reboot instantly, which i do and now the pc cannot start up again.
Fortunately I have the Drive Clone Pro installed that allows me to go back to the previous picture, but that also means that its back to square one with the Norton back on.
Now if only this this removal tool will not ask for for the original CD, it is OK. The site indicates that the pc will start a couple of times and ask for a few on screen instructions to follow for the uninstall. I suspect those instructions will be to insert the CD and I shall have to redo my computer all over again which is quite a bother besides losing out much data.
Oh why do people buy norton at all.
Let me know what u think. And once again thanks a ton for your advice.
regards

Reply   |   Comment by yyuosuff  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#101

I've been using TTS programs for years to help write (and proof) papers, and I've installed and tried out every one I know of. I already have the good voices, so that isn't an issue for me. Note that none of them really have a very user friendly or slick interface.
For basic reading of pasted-in text while you are sitting at your computer, any of the free programs would be just fine. If you want to open formatted files or save the text as audio files, though, you have fewer options. Also, not all the programs will highlight the word as it reads, which I like.
The primary reason I like TA is that it has the best support for doing the reading within a Word document while highlighting the words. Granted, it pops up a little box which can't be edited and isn't very user friendly, but none of the other TTS programs have anything close to this. All the other programs put the text in their own window and you must switch back and forth, way more annoying.

Reply   |   Comment by tkr5  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#100

A nice program - all of the recent giveaways have been very nice and useful. This program works quite well with a unique book scanner - the plustek opticbook 3600. Check it out - you can quickly scan in a book and the scanner will start an ocr and turn the scan into text. Next, run the text through this program to mp3, then upload to your mp3 player and listen to the book on the way to and from work. The combination allow you to easily read far more than time permits otherwise. Great for students. And yes, spend a few dollars and get the upgraded voices - the free ones quickly get annoying.

Reply   |   Comment by alpha omega  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#99

To#86:

How do you extract the voice packages from the Omni?

As you know this good program needs a good voice!

Reply   |   Comment by Ken  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#98

At the bottom of the software's download page, you can find a link to download the free L&H voices. Or for best quality, you can buy voices.

Reply   |   Comment by anonymuse  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#97

#63 and others - and #49 may wish to include this info when helping others. The main thing I see people here having issues with in the GAOTD process is caused by XP and later versions of WinDoze natively showing contents of the zip file you download, and allowing SOME interaction with them while still zipped. Locate the zipped file and RIGHT CLICK on it and choose extract to (personally I use the option of unzipping to a folder with the zip file's name). THEN open THAT folder and read the README.TXT , follow the instructions and things work great. BTW, the NextUp site downloads of windoze SAPI4 & SAPI5 are free and give you voices other than Sam - which isn't included in the program, it's simply there as Sam is the default windoze voice most people have on their PC already. Thanks GAOTD and TextAloud !!!

Reply   |   Comment by Scott Miller  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#96

Thank you. You have had several very useful programs recently, and I'm particularly excited about this one. My husband is severely dyslexic, and learns better from hearing rather than reading. Recently, he has started having vision loss from diabetes. This is a welcome addition to our lives. I can convert and listen to my backlog of "soft copy" work journals and articles now... and he can gain input from websites and e-books in a less-frustrating manner. Thank you to the other reviewers who suggested adaptations for lower vision users. This giveaway will enable us to try this for usefulness, before we invest more in the voices. I wish you had a way to limit reviews to "post download" or for those who actually had at least tried it - I have now learned to look for the solid reviewers and focus on that feedback. (and that from real users).

Reply   |   Comment by Nikki W  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#95

Someone posted links to some free downloadable natural voices, but I haven't the time to search for the links. (If ou don't findthem in the comments section, try the forums, the will probably be found around the time this or one of the other aloud programs was given away. I got three natural voices worth $50 or $60 totally for free. they definitely added a better sound to this program.

You can also get a basic reader via the following link:

http://www.naturalreaders.com/

The following link takes you to a download that gives you six free natural female voices. they areactually for another program, but it may e worth trying them out with Text Aloud:

http://www.exefind.com/female-voices-morphvox-add-on-P28665.html

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit aka Stephen  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#94

I apologise for not posting reminders for the free games this week. I just needed a few days away from things. You won’t be disappointed with this week’s crop of free games.

So far we’ve had a game from the Webmaster called CD-Man a decent 3D Pacman clone

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4595

Then Wizzard posted two great games an RPG platformer (very unusual combination) called The Spirit Engine:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4599

and another unusual platform game called Polarity:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4602

He wasn’t able to post Thursday’s game so I’ve filled in for him with two strategy games (to ensure there’s something for nearly everyone) called 1848 which covers the Hungarian Independence War, and a fantasy game called Glest, both of which are on the lines of The Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War, that game I posted several weeks ago, but these two games are very much smaller and downloadable by the dialup community:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4606

reverseOrder will be posting his student/indie games on Friday. :)

Reply   |   Comment by Whiterabbit aka Stephen  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#93

Wow! I can't believe how many people complain about a program because it doesn't come with all the bells and whistles. So, it works "out of the box" with Sam and we all know he sounds terrible. So, what program do you recommend that is totally free and comes with great voices? None? That's what I figured. Add to that all the people who try to send you to a website to check out a similar product that is "better" but fail to mention that you will pay a high price for the program.

Reply   |   Comment by legalbeagle  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#92

So what if you have to pay for a nice sounding voice - This program is great. I can listen to all those e-books I don't have time to read - this is something I can see using every single day. Thanks guys!

Reply   |   Comment by metheteacher  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#91

Hi all!!

This program exactly does what its developer says it got pretty GOOD RATINGS wherever it has been reviewed (see SOFTPEDIA USER RATING for example).

So I find pretty amazing that here it got just 44% THUMBS UP till now but I suppose that this is due to the fact that English native speakers like you find this kind of tools pretty USELESS as they usually don't need to learn another foreign language unlike the non-English native speakers like me (damn I'm very envious of you...LOL!!)

All the more reason to criticize the current GAOTD USER RATING as most of the times people vote the daily giveaway not on the basis of its features but according to its usefulness which of course may vary depending on people’s tastes and attitude.

In fact Text to Speech programs like this one along with Audio books, besides being originally designed for computer users who suffer from a low vision disability, are in my humble view nowadays the most effective way of learning English or whatever else foreign language you like.

In my case learning English by using audio books or Text to Speech program like this GAOTD has broadened my vocabulary dramatically helping me understand rapid speaking but more than all it is the only method that helps students learn the right pronunciation unless you hire a private mothertongue teacher in the flesh who usually charges you 50 or 60 EURO per hour...LOL!

So as for as I’m concerned 2 HUGE THUMBS UP for this GAOTD although it has just MICROSOFT VOICES and any AT&T NATURAL VOICES by default unless you buy them on their official websites (but amazingly they cost more than the SW itself...LOL!!). It would have been nice if GAOTD had added in the slurp that this GAOTD does not include any natural voices by default.



BEST FREEWARE ALTERNATIVES to this GAOTD:


- Mary TTS

- TextToWav

- Text2Speech

- Dspeech

Dspeech is a text to speech converter with functionality of ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) integrated which allows you to create interactive dialogues with the user through a simple script language.
It can convert not only TXT files but also PDF files, Microsoft DOC files and WEB PAGES to MP3, WAV or OGG formats with the ability to change the sound output quality, so as to allow the voices already on your PC to sound better, with a character talking up the top right of the screen whose sound is almost human and quite understandable.Another stand out point of Dspeech is that it also converts the audio from your microphone into text and allows you to quickly select different voices, even combine them in order to create dialogues between different voices. It’s a stand-alone program so doesn’t require any installation on your PC whatsoever letting you download and delete it without any risk of damaging your system unlike this GAOTD and the others mentioned above.Did I say that it’s FREE?? LOL!!


h ttp://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

(remove space at beginning)

Screenshots of this little GEM here:

h ttp://www.softpedia.com/progScreenshots/DSpeech-Screenshot-36935.html

(remove space at beginning)


- Ghost Clipboard Reader 1.7

h ttp://www.download.com/Ghost-Clipboard-Reader/3000-7239_4-10858927.html?tag=mncol

(remove space at beginning)


- Speakonia 1.0.3.6

h ttp://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Speakonia.shtml

(remove space at beginning)


- TTSReader 1.2

h ttp://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/TTSReader.shtml

(remove space at beginning)


- SpeakComputer TTS software 2009 V2.0

This is an absolute amazing special offer and I’m pretty sure that you’ll find it more interesting than this GAOTD as it includes 7 different TTS applications in one solution (TTS Reader, TTS Web Browser, TTS Mini Clipboard Reader, TTS Image Presentation, TTS Appointment Reminder, TTS Speaking Clock and the TTS Speech Parental controls to filter out words that you don’t want the Text to Speech engine to read).

h ttp://www.speakcomputers.com/Default.aspx

(remove space at beginning)

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Of course the main problem in using this GAOTD and the other FREEWARE TTS programs mentioned above is that they have WINDOWS VOICES by default that, as everybody knows, don’t sound very good although WINDOWS VISTA was very promising indeed in this area when it was lanched 2 years ago, but in the end it let me down even in this aspect (Mac is much better from this point of view).

Now as for as I know there are several FREEWARE and COMMERCIAL VOICES APPLICATIONS available on the web that can be downloaded and used as default voice instead of those built into WINDOWS, thus making any text to speech functions a little bit better and more enjoyable and formative for users even though still not perfect.

For instance here there are some amazing FREE NATURAL VOICES you can download and use as default voice for FREE along with other COMMERCIAL ones:

h ttp://www.bytecool.com/voices.htm

(remove space at beginning)

After installing them, play around with them in the Speech applet of your Control Panel TTS program and enjoy the different sound quality...LOL!!!!


Alternatively, a great way to get a better TTS sound with high-quality audio files, is to use ONLINE AUDIOBOOKS WEBSITES SERVICES.


The best ones I’m aware of are the following two:


- ODIOGO

http://www.odiogo.com/mainstream_media.php


It automatically converts text articles and dynamic web pages into high-quality audio files which can then be easily uploaded into an iPod/MP3 player,listened to on a mobile phone of new generation or played on a PC or Mac. Did I say that it’s FREE? LOL!!!!!



- YAKITOME (simply amazing)

http://www.yakitome.com


With this stunning WEB-BASED TEXT TO SPEECH APPLICATION you can turn any electronic text into an audio book podcast. It has multiple high-quality readers in different languages (English, Spanish, French, German) with both male and female natural voices and different regional accents from AT&T using the world's best text to speech (TTS) synthesis technologies.

So you can listen to work documents, homework, PowerPoint presentations, emails, RSS feeds, blogs and novels while you relax, commute or exercise: perfect for Proofreaders or people like me keen on learning or improving a foreign language.

With this professional online tool you can even podcast an electronic text to yourself for FREE in the well furnished Yakitome LIBRARY PODCAST and then listened to it, along with tons of others which can be chosen through the topic and language filter, with the world's best text to speech technology!

PROVARE PER CREDERE = THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING IS IN THE EATING...lol!!

http://www.yakitome.com./cgi-bin/output.py


Too good to be true and not just for English Language Learners, but the best part of it is that IT’S FREE, despite using AT&T technology with cool options available for users such as the rate of reading speed, the customized pronunciation for certain words, the possibility to display the text when you’re listening to it being spoken and the chance to create private groups upon request.



Cheers from Italy!

Giovanni

Reply   |   Comment by giovi 69  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#90

Have to agree with comment 45.

Creating a software voice is an extremely complex and programming-intensive thing to do. Mega-companies like Microsoft can afford to create voice and include them with their software, and even they -- as many have pointed out -- aren't giving away high-quality ones.

The TextAloud people aren't in that business. If they licensed high-quality voices from other companies to include with their software they couldn't afford to sell their software for only $30, let alone give it away free!

Their software is compatible with many voices. It's up to the users to decide what voices they like and weigh the cost against the quality.

Reply   |   Comment by sfridie  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#89

This is an amazing software, and I've been looking for it for ages! It's really incredible how easy it is to install and use; you can convert any text into speech- and even convert whole books to audiobooks and then enjoy them on your ipod or whatever!
Thanks a million, GAOTD! Great offer today!

Reply   |   Comment by mark aina  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#88

it's so amusing how much people download this crap. I'd love to see their computers and i bet you anything that i would find 15 different types of CD/DVD burning software. 33 types of programs to open PDF files AND to convert flash to PDF. a somewhat different paint version, 2 programs to monitor another program, because you just cannot trust some programs from this website, things for youtube, this crap, and 148287 screen savers "for the kids."

Reply   |   Comment by why  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#87

TO#37 Spacepixie;
On most windows msagent is a component of windows tour and search facility, it is usually located in C:\windows\msagent.
for more info see; Http://www.microsoft.com/msagent/prodinfo/resources.aspx

Reply   |   Comment by Kickapoodle  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#86

Yes, thanks #6! He said, "Omnipage" is the way to go! I tried one of their voice packages, and they do sound better than the ones by TextAloud!

Reply   |   Comment by chuck  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#85

Best all... with any respect, the best speech engine I've heared till now can be found on www.loquendo.com
Choose TTS and go to the demo site. I bet you can't believe your ears. All rest is hobby stuff. AT&T comes close, but still does not reach the loquendo level.

Reply   |   Comment by VlaNeder  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#84

When I first saw this, I thought, "Finally, a program that can convert text to speech in natural voice(s). Great!". But then, after trying it I heard Ye Old Uncle Sam's voice. This program is such a fail that it does not even include other "monotone" voices that a few freeware have. Only one voice, only one ! And a friendly message saying "thank you for buying our program for 30 bucks, now pay up more bucks so you can be able to actually use it".

Usually when I encounter bad Giveaways I think that hey, dont frown, its free. But this one totally disappointed me. And its (as far as i remember) the fist time I am actually thumbing down a giveaway.

Total Rip-off.

In short

- Has a lot of freeware alternatives.
- Does not provide any (useful) extra functionality than the freeware.
- Has only one voice: robotic Sam


To GAOTD: Please include another thing in the description, in bold letters, "Does not include any natural voices". You know that would have saved me a lot of time and I wouldn't have had to download this useless software with my "slow" internet connection. Totally Disappointed.

Reply   |   Comment by JK  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#83

#51, Sorry. >:)

#55 Here's the link to the program page: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Finances-Business/Omni-Page-Professional.shtml. It's a version back, but they're still really good voices.
I did actually PAY for OP16 which is what I consider the most detailed and intensive OCR program, if not clumsy and excessively advanced.

TA2 is useless to people who want to simply hear text. There are free versions of readers out there that use the same Microsoft voice library this one defaults to. Windows INCLUDES one in every version since 95 SR2.
Here's what the others don't do. This is, for the moment, FREE! It creates both MP3 and WMA. That means that with a decent audio voice package, you can make AUDIO BOOKS. Think about this; you have notes or transcriptions for you classes, or thesis reviews, or an ebook. You plug in the text; save to MP3, use the freeware splitter in GOTD's freeware list, and you now have an audio book you can listen to.
And I suggested how the user can make the voice sound better. I like Amy and Amanda from Omni 14 and 16 respectively, they can read both US and British spellings. Adobe's Jenna library has a thick Australian accent that would only appeal to Brits/Aussies who can understand it but makes some users comfortable. AT&T/USR has a Candy library for Linux/BSD/Unix and OS/2. She sounds very clean and almost Space Odyssey real, with even vocal fluctuations based on "learning" from the text around it, but she sounds, well, young. Good for reading Harry Potter to the kids I guess. Probably not a good choice for #12 though. ;)

Reply   |   Comment by lostinlodos  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#82

Emodio website has superb TTS voices free for download.
Why don't you guys try.

http://emodio.com/

Reply   |   Comment by Peter  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#81

#52 Download and run Norton Removal Tool:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039

Reply   |   Comment by Jay G.  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#80

SIGH... or even http://www.nuance.com/omnipage

Sorry for the typo in my previous comment.

Reply   |   Comment by Cad  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#79

#53: Can't understand how you can't find Omnipage with Google?!! A VERY quick search for omnipage found me www.nuance.com/ominpage! Among several hundred thousand others...

#73: Incorrect! Look on the NextUp site under the More Voices link and look at the BOTTOM of the rather long page! ;)

Reply   |   Comment by Cad  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#78

#54 & 71:
The version installed in this giveaway is version 2.292 . So it's the most recent version of this software.

Reply   |   Comment by Jay G.  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#77

Oh now it is activated. On vista activate.exe need to be run as Administrator. Its a nice software. I have used its trial version. I already have some premium voices. So this is going to be good for me

Reply   |   Comment by Agent 001  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#76

Thank you, Give Away of the Day. As a person who uses all sorts of accessibility products every day, I appreciate this offer. A blind person turned me on to this a few years ago, but I couldn't afford it. I'm glad to have it free. It is helpful for people with visual or textual processing difficulties.

Reply   |   Comment by distraida  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#75

Can anyone tell me if we can use GPS voices (Garmin, TomTom whatever) to use this program for better sounding text? How do you install additional voices on a PC? Sorry if I am asking a very dumb question!

Reply   |   Comment by Ash  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#74

TextToWav sounds like it does basically the same thing? thanks for posting

Reply   |   Comment by D  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#73

I'm not able to download any free voices. The links suggested were of other companies and their text to voice software. No isolated download of additional voice data base. # 62 "Next Up" does not have free voices, you have to pay.

Reply   |   Comment by Blaze  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#72

Program installed easily and so far works.

I found a site that lets you add additional voices for free with this program. However, occassionally a voice will interject reminder messages into the audio output until you purchase a valid license key for it.

http://www.cepstral.com/downloads/

Reply   |   Comment by Ken  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#71

By itself its not worth downloading. Its like the Read-out-Loud option in Adobe PDF Reader in the view menu. With Neospeech/ATnT voices (250mb each English voice American/British) it is absolutely fabulous. But those voices r expensive. Except puns, slang and exclamatory sentences, it would pronounce everything very well and had a pronunciation editor too. Without voices 3/10, with voices 8.5/10.
The nextup website is giving version 2.292 for eval download. Why are they giving version 2.0 here.
Bottomline...dont bother.

Reply   |   Comment by SachinG  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#70

Installed quick and easy; works great; (Win XP) I love it. I'll undoubtedly be purchasing a voice or two for it. I'd been looking at readers but since I wanted (instead of needed) one, I wasn't willing to pay the price they wanted for them. This one is a great price, even for those who don't get it free - leaving money to get some good voices to go with it.

Thanks GOTD!

Reply   |   Comment by Donna  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#69

In order to convert email text I wanted to an audio file for download onto my mp3 player I copy/pasted the text into "TextAloud" program window and selected "text to file" Is there a shortcut where I can do it straight from my email? I did not see an option on the Explorer/textaloud tool bar. blazeschi-ext4@fyahoo.com

Reply   |   Comment by Blaze  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#68

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!!! I have been waiting for this program for 4 months to put on my new computer! I like this program better than 2nd Speech Center, which was also one of your give aways, or any of the free TTS programs like Balabolka. I like this program best because you can change the pronounciation of words just once, on 2nd Speech I had to change them for every document, every time. I drive truck over the road and have lots of time to listen, but not much time to read, so I use this to make .wav files of interesting articles from the internet, and other sources. I don't know how well it works for reading the computer screen as I have never used it for that purpose. I just copy an article and paste it into Text Aloud.
Thanks so much GOATD for the program and offering it on a day that i am home!!!!! You guys are awesome!

Reply   |   Comment by Peggy  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#67

This is a great program.
You can read directly or convert text in mp3 file to read with a mp3 portable player.
You MUST have in your Pc one or few voices .
I use Loquendo, great voices.
I convert 400-500 and + pages of books in mp3 , TextAloud can chop text file . I use a size of 20 kb, that make mp3 of 20' lenght.
I tryed more and more program (visually impaired, it's usefully): this is the best !

Reply   |   Comment by Cassandra  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#66

I was actually already looking for an easy way to record robotic voices before this giveaway. Thanks, it's exactly what I needed.

There are other low quality voices that can be downloaded for free btw.

Reply   |   Comment by eh4rris  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#65

Toetaq (#39) is right. Balabolka (http://www.cross-plus-a.com/balabolka.htm) is an excellent free alternative to TextAloud. It has all the features that paid-for text-to-speech programs have and more.

Reply   |   Comment by Blackstickman  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#64

#51 says, "Please lighten up lostinlodos… As above, this sort of program is next to useless for me personally. Other folks I’m sure feel the same way, or maybe they have used TextAloud before & have reason to dislike it."

I don't know. I'm with lostinlodos: it's bad enough that most GOTD's get this kind of negative rating from those who don't use the products (but want to tell people "don't use that, try this instead"). That just seems a misuse of the ratings, but in this case TextOutLoud is a decent product that's been used for years. As others have noted, it does things that many other free tools don't. So rather than knock it because it doesn't LOOK like it does anything useful, can't the ratings be saved for those who have used a tool?

Note that you don't actually NEED to give a rating to offer a comment. If you want to point out an alternative, or share an opinion, feel free. But as the saying goes, "don't knock it (a tool's rating) until you've tried it".

Reply   |   Comment by carehart  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#63

@ #49 Excuse me buzz123, but I do know how to read the installation instructions. I could not save the activate exe because it could not find the file specified. I've downloaded quite a bit of software from here and usually don't have a problem.

Reply   |   Comment by Nancy  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#62

If you want decent free voices go to NextUp.com and get them.

Reply   |   Comment by Ray  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
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