The primary goal of Hear2Read Text-To-Speech (TTS) Apps is to help Visually Impaired (VI) read books, web sites, e-mail, Word and text documents, SMS text, Facebook postings and WhatsApp messages etc. by listening to speech output. Hear2Read Apps are being used by a large number of people without Visual Impairment (often referred to as sighted users) as described later.
Hear2Read Apps use Android TTS service APIs to provide TTS service to any App that wants to support the ability to "Read" by listening to software generated speech. The TTS engine runs as a background service available to any App (including Talkback) on the Android device (Smart Phone or Tablet).
These Apps convert Unicode text for Indian languages and ASCII English text to speech. Hear2Read Apps cannot read .pdf files that contain graphical images of text which requires OCR software.
This major update from Release 1.1.1 to Release 2.0 splits the TTS Engine and Punjabi female voice database in two separate Apps. This App contains the voice database and assists the user to install Release 2 TTS Engine from Play Store. The Release 2 TTS Engine is used by all Hear2Read voice Apps. It is available at:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.hear2read.indic.
Once the TTS Engine is installed, users can install additional Hear2Read voices for other languages.
Hear2Read Apps are not meant to be used by themselves. These Apps include a simple Demo page to allow users to listen to example sentences. For reading longer text (such as books, web sites, e-mail, Word and text documents) use the Talkback feature (if you are a VI) or one of many screen reading Apps such as @Voice Aloud Reader.
Most screen reading Apps provide an option to save the speech output.
Please send questions to Feedback@Hear2Read.org. PLEASE DO NOT USE REVIEWS TO ASK QUESTIONS. We love to answer questions on how to use Hear2Read Apps. However, developers are limited to 350 character response to review comments. Often this is insufficient to provide a complete answer.
Talkback (Accessibility feature for VI users) uses the TTS voice selected for the preferred engine under "Text-to-speech output" settings. The preferred engine default is generally Google TTS Engine. The language default is generally "system language" which is most often English. These are good choices for VI users who understand Android navigation buttons spoken in English even if they do not speak or understand English.
Some screen reading Apps for VI users (such as "@Voice Aloud Reader") determine the content language and then select the appropriate TTS engine and voice. Such Apps do not require users to change the preferred engine to Indic Hear2Read. Such Apps require Talkback setting Audio ducking (Focus Speech Audio) to be turned ON. This allows the screen reading App to pause speaking, when Talkback speaks using the preferred engine, as is the case when the VI users touches any navigation button or home button to open another App.
Some Apps (such as "Voice Dream Reader" for reading eBooks) allow the user to select and associate a TTS Engine and language for each book. This selection is used instead of the preferred engine & voice used by Talkback.
At this time Hear2Read focus is on speaking Indic text well. We realize that often there is embedded English text and numbers. Numbers are spoken in Punjabi whether written in English or the Indic script. Hear2Read Apps do speak embedded English text though not very well. We are working on improving this.
Hear2Read Apps use Festvox, Festival and Flite Open Source software developed by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and collaborators including Hear2Read volunteers and University of Edinburgh.
Requires devices with 1 GB (or more) RAM and Quad core CPU.
Please send comments and questions to Feedback@Hear2Read.org.
Note: Hear2Read is a registered trademark
