Speak Aloud

For dedicated multitaskers or busy travelers, the ability to have documents or e-mails read out loud can be a big time-saver. Speak Aloud helps with this task, reading text from the screen or turning documents into audio files that can be saved for later playback.

The software can perform a batch conversion, turning an entire text library or set of e-mails into audio files automatically, and supports a variety of formats including MP3, OGG, WMA, and FLAC. We found the interface to be quite simple, allowing a user to select any text in a document and have it read out loud simply by pressing Ctrl C. A few quirks keep us from recommending it wholeheartedly, however.

The program lacks controls for skipping to the next sentence or paragraph. It has difficulty starting a new piece of text until the program has read through the previously selected block. While the software does have attractive features, these flaws keep it from measuring up to some of its text-to-speech rivals.