Voice for Mac

Voice for Mac works fairly well at translating text into audio, but the available voice options all sound very computerized. The application is available for free and installs easily.

The main menu seems sparse with few details that would be expected of an advanced application. Fortunately, the main functions are clearly labeled. A box allows text to be manually typed or pasted in from other applications. An export button allows the output to be saved for later use, and a Preferences menu allows selection of a number of playback voices and speed of the reading. After typing in the text, a Play button begins the reading back process. Unfortunately, the voices all sound very digitized and lack any natural sound. The different voice preferences are distinguished by age and gender, but didn't always match what was anticipated during our tests. Overall, Voice for Mac feels one-note but it does function as a text-to-speech tool.

Despite being functional as a voice playback program, Voice for Mac fails to reveal much that would make it a useful addition to most Mac systems. However, users who quickly need to convert texts to audio files may like the simplicity this app brings to the table.