Text-to-speech (TTS) is a type of speech synthesis
application that is used to create a spoken version of the text in a
computer document. Microsoft has developed a TTS program interface (SAPI) that most companies
use to drive their synthetic voices (speech engines). The
ReadClip program uses the TTS voices to
read aloud any text document that can be copied to the Windows clipboard or
input into the TTS Reader.
The Microsoft TTS SAPI must be installed
on your PC prior to running the ReadClip program. The TTS
setup program can be
downloaded at
www.microsoft.com/Reader. Microsoft's version includes their own TTS
reader which is dedicated to reading eBooks.
Click here to download just the TTS setup program.
The TTS SAPI includes a few voices such as
Microsoft Mary, but these voices are of low quality. There are
several companies that have created voices for TTS that are
superior in voice quality and speaking performance but they are not free. It
is our opinion that the best quality voices for the price are
NeoSpeech's voices
Paul and Kate.
Listen to their voice demos at
http://www.neospeech.com
Here are some companies that create voices for TTS. There is a
wide variety of voices to choose from including voices in several languages.
Listen to their demos and decide which voices you prefer.
