Today, almost all of us are familiar with text-to-speech applications, which allow us to convert what we write in text to audio. And although it is not a recent technology, with the standardization of voice assistants, such as Siri, and artificial intelligence, they are gaining more and more notoriety among us.
Do you want to know more about voice assistants? We tell you all about these in the following article from I amdeMac.
What is a voice assistant?
Text-to-speech applications, also known as Text-to-Speech (TTS), for a long time they have been crucial for our daily activity, being one of the key technologies in the development of technology today.
Some of the reasons why text to speech apps are important could be as follows.
- Because they facilitate access to information from visually impaired people, allowing them to listen to information on web pages, e-books, documents and other sources that would otherwise be inaccessible to them.
- It helps to faster assimilation of information and learning, helping students improve reading comprehension and general language skills. It can even be useful in learning new languages.
- Facilitates multilanguage access in conjunction with translation programs.
- It is the basis of voice assistants that we use popularly, such as Siri, Google or Alexa.
- It helps us automate processes and taskssuch as reading reports, emails or long documents, so that we can receive that information while we do other things.
- Because they are one of the developments that will contribute to AI and robotics in the coming yearss, making the voice processing of machines more natural and realistic.
Now that we know why these apps are important, let's take a look at the desirable features that a good text-to-speech app has to have in order for us to say that it's really useful.
What characteristics must a voice assistant have for us to say that it is good?
Although there are multitudes of text-to-speech programs, we cannot say that all of them are exactly good. It depends on the quality of the synth and the effort the platform has put into developing it so we can say it's good.
There are certain characteristics that, as users, should be the minimum required so that we can say that we are in front of a good text-to-speech assistant:
- Have a natural, clear and fluent voice quality, that suits the context and purpose of the text. Robotic voices from the 90s are no longer in use, and they are intended to have the greatest possible realism.
- El be able to synthesize different languages, dialects and accents, and that allows the user to choose between several voice options. For example, in a Spanish-speaking country like Mexico, the proper thing would be to sequence the text in the dialect of the area to avoid it sounding strange to people, as it could happen if it were done in Spanish Spanish.
- that i can express proper intonation, emphasis, emotions and pauses depending on the text and type of message. This is very important, because if you read through without having the right pauses, you could end up with a message that is impossible to understand.
- Having an adjustable synthesis speed, that it is neither too fast nor too slow, since we may be interested in changing it depending on the situation.
- Cross-platform compatibility, so that it does not force us to use a specific operating system and thus ensure the universality of the solution.
- And, above all, the most important thing: make it accessible, easy to use.
Some recommended text-to-speech apps
NaturalReader: the name says it all
If what you are looking for is a fast, functional TTS program that meets most of the characteristics that we said were desirable in a good text-to-speech program, Natural Reader it is an option to consider.
This program can read a variety of texts aloud such as PDF files, online articles, cloud documents, and even images taken with your camera.
Within the existing voice options, it lets you choose from more than 140 AI-powered voices in more than 25 different languages ​​and dialects.
Among the most notable characteristics of the solution, we would point out the following:
- Synchronization with cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and iCloud
– conversion of toutput to audio MP3
– OCR mode for read text from images
- The possibility of follow the text as it reads
- A learning module to highlight words while reading
- Speed, pitch and volume adjustment of the voice to choose what we like the most as users
Narakeet: a good online TTS to put together sentences
If what you are looking for is a program that has many options, but above all that allows you to create a number of audio files with good speech synthesis, we advise you to take a look at narakeet.
This web page does not require you to install anything on your computer, so it will be fully compatible with the device you have connected to the Internet regardless of its operating system.
Narakeet offers the service of Text to Speech in some 90 different languages, using different voices with differential accents.
The best of the solution, without a doubt, is the ability to create MP4 files for free as long as we do not agree to make corporate use of them, which can be very useful for us.
Speechify: a free cross-platform TTS
If what you are looking for is a TTS that adapts to any terrain, speechify It is your application, without a doubt.
This TTS offers great realism and even the possibility of putting personalities like Gwyneth Paltrow or the singer Snoop Dogg as the voices that will accompany your texts in a realistic way.
Due to these characteristics, it is an application that has been talked about in large media such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes or TIME magazine, which guarantees that we are facing a high-quality solution.
But the strong point, in addition to the voices, it is the very cross-platform nature of the solution: works both from the web, as an application for Mac or as an extension for Chrome-based browsers, among other solutions.
For all these reasons, we think it's worth taking a look if you're interested in finding a good text-to-speech app that you can use with whatever device you have at hand.
And with this we conclude our article on text-to-speech applications. We hope that the information on this type of program has been useful to you and if you have been wanting to learn more about Mac, we advise you to read this other article that may be of interest to you and that is related to it.