For most people reading this page, I’m sure that losing your vision is a dreadful idea. Unfortunately, partial blindness and complete vision loss are facts of life for many people around the world, even those who use the Internet regularly. In fact, someone with visual impairments could be reading this article right now. If you or a friend or family member are visually impaired, or you just want a screen reader, stick with me, and I’ll recommend the best screen-reading applications.

While you will have all that you need to be reading blind you have finished reading this article, you definitely shouldn’t be grabbing just any old screen reader off the Internet either.

• Simultaneous Stanza Reader for Mac OS X is a free, TTS reader that reads text files aloud and displays the text stanza-after-stanza. You can easily use this program to read books from Project Gutenberg aloud.
• Free NaturalReader (dxdiag.exe). Free NaturalReader is a free text-to-speech program offered by NaturalSoft. As far as its features are concerned, you'll probably find this program a bit lacking.

Reading Blind: The Best Screen Readers for the Visually Impaired By Christopher Harper – Posted on Oct 19, 2015 Oct 18, 2015 in Software Tools For most people reading this page, I’m sure that losing your vision is a dreadful idea.

Best Microsoft Windows Screen Reader: JAWS

What would this list be without Freedom Scientific’s JAWS? It advertises itself as (and is) the most popular screen reader on the market and for good reason. The company that makes it is also prominent for making other products oriented toward the disabled, including magnifiers, large-print keyboards and even digital braille-centered devices. If you already use Windows and Freedom Scientific’s other products, buying JAWS is a no-brainer. Though, therein lies its downside: unlike some other programs on this list, JAWS is not free, though it has a nice trial for anyone who wants to take it for a test run.

Best Mac OS X Screen Reader: Apple VoiceOver

Natural Reader Voices

Also available on iOS, VoiceOver is Apple’s free screen-reading solution made for Mac OS X, and it’s probably one of the best on this list. In addition to having very deep, OS-level integration, VoiceOver also has features like braille support and functions tailored specifically to Mac hardware like a “Rotor” function mapped to the touchpad and gestures. If you’re using a Mac or iPhone, there’s no reason not to grab Voiceover.

Best Chrome (OS) Screen Reader: Google ChromeVox

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the best screen-reading solution for Chrome and Chrome OS is the one developed by Google. ChromeVox is a Chrome (OS)-centered solution intended to make Chrome and Chrome OS more usable for the visually-impaired. If you’re using Windows or another desktop OS, you may want to consider using a screen reader that works on an OS level. Otherwise, you should definitely look into ChromeVox. It can be performance-taxing, but it’s a fairly solid screen reader offered for the low, low price of free.

Best Free JAWS Alternative: NVDA

NVDA is a prolific, free open-source screen-reading solution for Windows, and as far as competition with JAWS goes, it’s probably the best thing you can go for. Plus, it’s free. NVDA comes with a multitude of features, including braille display compatibility, being able to be run as a portable app and having developer-suited features like reading the command prompt. As far as features and free dev support on Windows goes, this is your best bet.

Closing

I took a few screen readers for a test run (aside from the Apple solution), and I walked away with mostly positive thoughts. What about you? Do any of you use screen readers or have better recommendations? Sound off in the comments, and let me know if you do!

In years gone by, text to speech software was rather expensive, but these days there are excellent text to speech tools available free of charge. We're here to help you find the very best tools that will make converting written documents to audio files as easy as possible.

Text to speech software can be enormously helpful for anyone who's visually impaired, or has a condition like dyslexia that makes reading on screens tricky. It can also help overcome language barriers for people who read a language but don't speak it, or are in the process of learning.

Text to speech software is also ideal if you want to listen to a document while doing something else, if you find it easier to retain information you've heard, or if you want to sense-check something you've written.

Here's our pick of the best free text to speech software for reading either individual paragraphs or whole documents aloud.

Natural Reader App For Windows

1. Balabolka

Save text as a spoken audio file, with customizable voices

There are a couple of ways to use Balabolka's free text to speech software: you can either copy and paste text into the program, or you can open a number of supported file formats (including DOC, PDF, and HTML) in the program directly. In terms of output you can use SAPI 4 complete with eight different voices to choose from, SAPI 5 with two, or the Microsoft Speech Platform if you download and install the necessary files. Whichever route you choose, you can adjust the speech, pitch and volume of playback to create custom voice.

In addition to reading words aloud, this free text to speech software can also save narrations as audio files in a range of formats including MP3 and WAV. For lengthy documents you can create bookmarks to make it easy to jump back to a specific location and there are excellent tools on hand to help you to customize the pronunciation of words to your liking.

With all these features to make life easier when reading text on a screen isn't an option, Balabolka is best free text to speech software around.

2. Natural Reader

Free text to speech software with its own web browser

Natural Reader is a free text to speech tool that can be used in a couple of ways. The first option is to load documents into its library and have them read aloud from there. This is a neat way to manage multiple files, and the number of supported file types is impressive, including ebook formats. There's also OCR, which enables you to load up a photo or scan of text, and have it read to you.

The second option takes the form of a floating toolbar. In this mode, you can highlight text in any application and use the toolbar controls to start and customize text to speech. This means you can very easily use the feature in your web browser, word processor and a range of other programs. There's also a built-in browser to convert web content to speech more easily.

3. Panopretor Basic

Easy text to speech conversion, with WAV and MP3 output

As the name suggests, Panopreter Basic delivers free text to speech conversion without frills. It accepts plain and rich text files, web pages and Microsoft Word documents as input, and exports the resulting sound in both WAV and MP3 format (the two files are saved in the same location, with the same name).

The default settings work well for quick tasks, but spend a little time exploring Panopreter Basic's Settings menu and you'll find options to change the language, destination of saved audio files, and set custom interface colors. The software can even play a piece of music once it's finished reading – a nice touch you won't find in other free text-to-speech software.

If you need something more advanced, a premium version of Panopreter is available for US$29.95 (about £20, AU$40). This edition offers several additional features including toolbars for Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, the ability to highlight the section of text currently being read, and extra voices.

4. WordTalk

An extension that adds text to speech to your word processor

Developed by the University of Edinburgh, WordTalk is a toolbar add-on for Word that brings customizable text to speech to Microsoft Word. It works with all editions of Word and is accessible via the toolbar or ribbon, depending on which version you're using.

The toolbar itself is certainly not the most attractive you'll ever see, appearing to have been designed by a child. Nor are all of the buttons' functions very clear, but thankfully there's a help file on hand to help.

Natural Reader Software For Mac

There's no getting away from the fact that WordTalk is fairly basic, but it does support SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 voices, and these can be tweaked to your liking. The ability to just read aloud individual words, sentences or paragraphs is a particularly nice touch. You also have the option of saving narrations, and there are a number of keyboard shortcuts that allow for quick and easy access to frequently used options.

5. Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader

A great choice for converting text from websites to speech

Download Pdf Reader For Mac

Despite its basic looks, Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader has more to offer than you might first think. You can open numerous file formats directly in the program, or just copy and paste text.

Alternatively, as long as you have the program running and the relevant option enables, Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader can read aloud any text you copy to the clipboard – great if you want to convert words from websites to speech – as well as dialog boxes that pop up. Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader can also convert text files to WAV format.

Natural Reader

Unfortunately the selection of voices is limited, and the only settings you can customize are volume and speed unless you burrow deep into settings to fiddle with pronunciations. Additional voices are available for a US$25 fee (about £20, AU$30), which seems rather steep, holding it back from a higher place in our list.