- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: July 22, 2002
- Total Downloads: 403,343
- Downloads last week: 2,170
- See full specifications
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 79 votes
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CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
Not a fictional Eastern European country from a Marx Brothers movie, Speakonia is actually a modest freeware utility that reads text out loud. Speakonia comes with about 20 voices (all with strong robotic accents) and lets you quickly change the reading speed and pitch. It's also little trouble to correct the pronunciation of words (proper names, for instance). Speakonia can save text in WAV files for playback when you're driving or jogging, but unfortunately it can't save sound files in the MP3 format, so you may need a third-party conversion utility. The program interface is clear and straightforward; you simply select text in any document and press Ctrl C to read it aloud. However, Speakonia lacks controls for skipping to the next sentence or paragraph. In spite of those drawbacks, its decent performance and free price make it a reasonable choice for the vision-impaired or people who'd rather do their reading with their ears than their eyes.Publisher's description
From CFS-Technologies :Speakonia is a Text-To-Speech Program which is controlled through a graphical user interface (Similar to Notepad). Speakonia reads aloud any given text. The reading can be paused, resumed and can be exported to a wave file. Speakonia is able to fetch webpages through an internal http interface and read them aloud for you. You can have your mails read to you using the 'Clipboard Reading' feature.
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User reviews
- Average user rating: 4.2 stars out of 79 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 74 user reviewsSee all 74 user reviews
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Speakonia 1.3.5
Pros: This was easy to install and use. I've only used Opera Voice and one other voice program so I don't have much to compare it to. You can set the functions so when you select text and copy it to the clipboard it automatically reads the text. There's an assortment of voices, speeds, tones - adjustable to your listening preferences which is nice. I haven't used the other functions but it's user friendly.
Cons: The female voices were listed, but didn't work. Only male voices worked for me (not that it matters a whole lot). When you chose it to talk by saving to clipboard it's inconvenient if you want to use the voice function while you're editing (copy/paste). The other option is to put the selected text into it's "notepad" style clipboard/screen whatever you want to call it. But it's a light cute program. Great value for free!
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9 out of 9 people found this review helpful
Version: Speakonia 1.3.5
"Convenient features, many voices"
Pros: I love this program. After installing it, I looked at the list of voices, and I counted 41; I was very happy with that. I had voices for Spanish, French, German, and Italian texts; I had British as well as American voices from which to choose. A feature I found extremely convenient is that if the program is open and one is using one's browser, one can simply select text on the page, or select the entire page, and immediately Speakonia will begin to read the text. In addition, the program has pitch, speed, and volume controls; it can save the text as wave files; and it will announce the current time and date on request.
Cons: The "Read Webpage" feature, in which Speakonia retrieves a specified webpage by itself and then proceeds to read it aloud, can result in Speakonia reading the encoding in the web page as well as the words. But this feature is labeled "experimental."
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Speakonia 1.3.5
Pros: Really great program and it dose all it says although I favor Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader as maybe as slightly better
Cons: NONE
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1 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Speakonia 1.3.5
Pros: conversion to wav file option is good.no other xtra quality.I have similar programme for children called "TALK IT"which offers at least 20 accents;each with 50 times better quality of sound reproduction and much smaller in file size.
Cons: 1.Asian/Indian accents missing
2.clarity not to good level
3.it will be good if it gives tray icons so that it can be run in the background.mere naming of text document should start reading
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3 out of 4 people found this review helpful
Version: Speakonia 1.3.5
Pros: I like this because you can make the speeches with funny voices that work well with Flash. It's free, small in file size and easy to use.
Cons: Unrealistic voices and old technology can make this a bit unattractive, but it is still a solid program.
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