Science and technology has revolutionized our daily life. One technology which is very popular among people who love technology is the text to speech application. It is very useful for disabled people and for educational purposes. It is also used widely as a computer interface and is also used for consumer products and in telecommunication. It is an application that converts text into audio which is read by a human voice. There are numerous text to speech applications in the market today. Hence, the best text to speech software would still differ based on location and languages available. To further understand these applications, here are some of the major features a text to speech application must have.
Common Text To Speech Application Features
- Multi-Format Conversion – Most text to voice converter can convert commonly used text format such as MS word, notepad, emails, webpage and other commonly used formats into audio. Hence, you can find others that have more features that can also convert PDF and other files but are likely to be more expensive. Aside from the text formats it can process, output options are also available which includes MP3, WAV and MP4 formats.
- Multi-Lingual Conversion – Most text to speech applications support common languages which includes American and British English, German, French, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and others. Hence, there are also specialized text to speech applications like eSpeak that supports other uncommon foreign languages.
- Operating System Specific – Text to speech applications can only be installed and used to specific devices and operating systems. A text to speech application for Windows 7 cannot work with your iPhone or Android and vice versa.
One might wonder how these programs can convert text into a speech by a human voice. It is called as a concatenation of diaphones on which this is based on. The phonemes is what is taken as input which has the prosodic information, which consists of the duration and description of the phonemes. This is then produced as sound or speech with a 16 bit linear frequency. The software then assembles the diaphone data’s which is then forms the spoken word according to the input text provided.
Text to speech software is ideal in teaching small kids to read. It serves the purpose of a human teacher as the voice is human and can help the kid to read just like a physical teacher. If you want to learn a foreign language this text to speech application is a wonderful companion. It can teach you to talk and pronounce the words perfectly. If you want to know more about this software you can search for text to speech online. There are many resources available and you will find many text to speech software reviews through which you can understand how this whole thing might work for you. This will also help to decide which software is best for your need. There are also text to speech freeware online you can use or even download. One of the most popular and perhaps commonly used free text to speech converter online is the Google text to speech. It supports some of the major languages and is free. You can check whether the interface is user friendly and whether you are able to understand the speech very clearly.
Nowadays mobile phones are like mini computers with various applications. Many mobile providers have the text to speech software to read out the messages or guide you with the programs. Text to speech android application can easily be downloaded through the android market. This application can also be used in iPhones, iPads and other tablet pc’s.
Text to speech applications are fun and very useful but still if the text is unclear or has mistakes then there is a problem of not getting the spoken word correct. Also this technology can be improved and used for many other fields to educate and help in more serious work than it is used today.