Free and Paid Best Text To Speech Software

Last Updated on April 22, 2023 by Uncle Pat Ugwu

As online education continues to become part of formal learning, educators seek better tools to create eLearning content. But many of them do not have the right voice or equipment to produce good audible lessons. Using the best text-to-speech software also known as TTS can reduce production time and give you quality learning material. We previously put together basic technological tools for teaching.

In this post, I will make a list of Text to Speech Software for your educational purposes. Text-to-speech is artificial human speech production. Best text-to-speech software is used to convert normal language text to voice speech with the help of a speech synthesizer.

The quality of a speech synthesizer can be measured by the similarity of the human voice and the ability to clearly understand it. TTS programs can also help visually impaired persons to listen to written words using their computer or other devices. As you can see, Artificial Intelligence plays a role in education.

Here is a list of text-to-speech programs you can use to produce your YouTube videos and for other purposes. Some text-to-speech free downloads are also available.

1. Balabolka

Balabolka is a Text-To-Speech (TTS) program. All computer voices installed on your system are available to Balabolka. The program uses various versions of Microsoft Speech API (SAPI); it allows altering a voice’s parameters, including rate and pitch.

The user can apply a special substitution list to improve the quality of the voice’s articulation. This feature is useful when you want to change the spelling of words. The rules for the pronunciation correction use the syntax of regular expressions. Balabolka can save the synchronized text in external LRC files or in MP3 or WAV files.

2. Natural Reader

Natural Reader is a powerful Text-to-Speech for at home, at work, or on the go. The software will help you to create narration for YouTube videos. Generate audio for eLearning material. Public use, broadcasting, or IVR systems. Latest and most intelligent AI voices.

• No coding knowledge or experience is needed.
• Optimized for mobile.
• Customize WebReader to make it your own!
• Accommodates accessibility standards.

3. AudioBookMaker

Audiobookmaker is a freeware text-to-speech software that reads texts by human voice (text-to-speech player). It uses text-to-speech engines installed on your computer. Its features are:

• Aloud text reading by different voices (and in different languages).
• Converting text to audio files (*.WAV, *.MP3) with high speed.
• Adjustable speech parameters: speed, pitch, volume.
• Automatic text scrolling to make text in the current reading position visible (“speech following”). The spoken text also can be highlighted with any color while reading.
• Easy-to-add pluggable pronunciation dictionaries, help to customize the pronunciation of single words, abbreviations, and word combinations and to make word substitutions.
• Reading of big-sized files.
• MS Word (.DOC) and .HTML files import.
• Remembers each opened document setting (voice parameters, dictionary set, colors, current speech position, etc) between reading sessions.
• Built-in scheduler for automatic computer shutdown on speech finish.
• Optional Windows context menu integration.
• Monotone speech reduction.
• Multilingual interface (English, Russian and Chinese (Simplified) are included)
• Minimizing to tray, global hotkeys and other useful features.

4. Speechelo

Speechelo helps you to instantly transform any text into a 100% human-sounding voice-over. It takes simple steps thus – Just paste the text you want to be transformed into our online text editor. The A.I. engine will check your text and will add all the punctuation marks needed to make the speech sound natural.

You may need to choose the voice you like, and speechelo will generate the audio sound for you. You can play the voice-over directly from Speechelo to see if you like it, or if you want to try a different voice.

5. Acapella Group Virtual Speaker

Acapela Virtual Speaker will help you to easily produce your High-Quality audio files, in over 30 languages. It is a solution designed to allow you to create high-quality voice recordings at any time, 24/7, using a virtual recording studio installed on the PC.

The power and naturalness of Acapela voices are at your fingertips. You provide the texts and choose the voice, Virtual Speaker will immediately create audio files with voice recordings, using the high-quality, multilingual, text-to-speech from Acapela Group.

6. Amazon Polly

Amazon Polly is a service that turns text into lifelike speech, allowing you to create applications that talk and build entirely new categories of speech-enabled products. Polly’s Text-to-Speech (TTS) service uses advanced deep learning technologies to synthesize natural-sounding human speech. With dozens of lifelike voices across a broad set of languages, you can build speech-enabled applications that work in many countries.

In addition to Standard TTS voices, Amazon Polly offers Neural Text-to-Speech (NTTS) voices that deliver advanced improvements in speech quality through a new machine learning approach. Polly’s Neural TTS technology also supports a Newscaster speaking style that is tailored to news narration use cases.

7. Google Cloud Text To Speech

Google Cloud Text To Speech converts text into natural-sounding speech using an API powered by Google’s AI technologies. Improve customer interactions with intelligent, lifelike responses.

Engage users with a voice user interface in your devices and applications, and personalize your communication based on user preference of voice and language. Google Cloud TTS is one of the best text-to-speech software and users do not have to create a fresh account since they already have a Gmail account.

8. Linguatec Voice Reader

Voice Reader Home 15 is text-to-speech software for private users. It is now available with improved and amazingly natural-sounding voices. The language and voice selection has been substantially extended and offers an enormous selection of voices and languages. Convert any text such as Word documents, Emails, Epubs, or PDFs into audio and listen to them directly on a PC or mobile device.

For private usage: Create audio files for personal use. Do you need to publish audio files? Then, the professional solution Voice Reader Studio 15 is exactly right for you!

In Conclusion

Video content has proven to be more engaging than just text and graphics. Many marketers today now use video clips to make their apps. But not all of them can face the camera and talk. Sometimes you may wish to create a cartoon instead of using a real human. Choosing the best text-to-speech software is a useful tool to power the integration of technology in the classroom.

All that is required of you is to download a good voice that is suited for what you are doing and fire on. YouTube video creators and podcast makers can also use one of these best text-to-speech software.

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