text to speech english software

Free Text To Speech AI Online

Hi, I'm Cliff, founder of Speechify. I have Dyslexia. When I was a kid, I wanted my dad to be proud of me. But I couldn't read well. My dad started reading Harry Potter to me. I loved it. Without reading, I couldn't become who I wanted to be. So, I built Speechify to turn anything into an audiobook. Today, 30 million people use Speechify to read 3x faster, remember 2x more & reduce their stress. My mission is to be who I needed most when I was growing up. Much love ❤, Cliff

Unlock unlimited file uploads, speeds up to 4.5x, 200+ voices, 50+ languages, AI summarization, voice cloning, our Chrome Extension/iOS/Android/Mac apps, and more. Try for free!

200+ LIFELIKE AI VOICES

Enjoy over 200 natural, lifelike text to speech AI voices across 60+ languages — TTS is great for Google Docs, news articles, emails, books, fan fiction, PDFs, any website, and more

LISTEN ANYWHERE

Chrome extension.

The fastest way to read any PDF, book, or doc and make it stick. Integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, Canvas & more.

Let Speechify read to you while you commute, exercise, and run errands. Breeze through PDFs, books, articles, emails — anything.

Let Speechify read to you while you walk to work, go for a run, or do laundry. Get through PDFs, books, articles, docs & emails twice as fast.

Read up to 4.5x faster by listening with Speechify. Listen to Google Docs, emails, articles & more seamlessly on Chrome.

Use Speechify from your Dock to read PDFs, Word docs, emails & more. Listen and read at the same time to read faster and retain more.

Clone Your Voice

Create a custom voice of yourself or your loved ones and enjoy having them read anything to you

Read 4.5x Faster

Our users save up to 9hrs a week by using Speechify to speed read

Instant AI Summaries

We summarize every reading so you get the takeaways right away

Scan & Listen

Use the app to snap a pic of any page and have Speechify read to you

Introducing Our Text To Speech API

We're sharing an API that delivers Speechify's most natural and beloved AI voices directly with developers

OUR LISTENERS LOVE US

Over 250k people have given speechify 5 stars.

Speechify is absolutely brilliant. Growing up with dyslexia this would have made a big difference. I’m so glad to have it today.

This is the only review I’ve ever written. I downloaded this app to help me read books about the stock market and finance while I do my day job. It brough me to the brink of tears at my desk. Love the app.

I absolutely love that this app has been invented. I read a ton of pdf documents as a lawyer and researcher and I will now be able to get through them faster and with much better comprehension than before!

I was skeptical at first, however with my serious issue to be unable to focus reading extensive documentation for work, this program made it a breeze. Well worth the premium dollars! Love it.

Speechify makes it easy to learn at 2x or even 3x the speed you read with your eyes.

I used to hate school because I'd spend hours just trying to read the assignments. Listening has been totally life changing. This app saved my education.

This made my job 10x easier. I read scripts, conversations, and other text files all day, and this made it a lot easier to retain and wayyyyy faster. Thanks y’all!

I have always been a slow reader. As a professional, I have a lot of material to read through between industry emails, new rules and regulations, and continuing education. Speechify helps me power through it.

If there’s one hill I’m going to die on, it’s that speed listening is the best way forward. Speechify is a game-changer for me.

Mighty be one of the GOAT apps This is probably top 5 of greatest apps ever, you can literally read alone an entire book in a day. Easily worth the cost of the app.

Excellent for comprehending medical textbooks more quickly and thoroughly!! This is awesome for keeping up with latest surgical techniques and technology.

best app evaaa I use it because my head be scrambling up words, so I scan pages off books and work, and boom!!!! It works so well I love it. ♥️ ♥️ ♥️

Amazing I have ADHD and I love to read but have piles of book that I have never touched. I downloaded this app and it has helped me read more and obtain information better for school! Love this app, I recommend it to everyone!

I am a resident and this app saves me a ton of time. I listen to PDF’s while walking to clinic, running, making coffee in the morning.

Miracle reader. Been looking for a program like this to proof read my work. Allows me to develop a personalized style of reading. Love it!

Amazing!!! A dream come true! This is simply the best tool as an data specialist and having to do reports my time is limited and this tool is a must have for companies or any individual who is trying to better their reading abilities and increase productivity .

Text to speech, sometimes called TTS , read aloud , or speech synthesis , is the term for using AI voices to turn any input text into speech. The input text can be from a PDF, email , Google doc , epub , website – anything. Speechify has built the most used text to speech applications in the world.

An AI voice refers to the synthesized or generated speech produced by artificial intelligence systems, enabling machines to communicate with human-like speech. Speechify has a large speech research team of PhDs who focus on providing the most cutting edge speech models to Speechify users through our applications.

Speechify has applications that are available on iOS, Android, Chrome, Mac, and Microsoft Edge. All of these applications are available through a single Speechify account. You can start reading an article on your computer using the Speechify Chrome Extension, bookmark it, and find it instantly available for you to listen on your iPhone or Android. Speechify is the most used tool in the world for text to speech listening. It enables millions of people create audiobooks out of anything the need to read.

Everyone. Students use text to speech to get through all of their school reading faster, whether its PDFs , Google Docs , or textbooks . Speechify also helps them to retain more of what they read so they do better on exams. Professionals use text to speech to get through reading for work. They save time by reading during commutes, errands, or working out. Leisure readers use Speechify for their favorite books and fan fiction. People with dyslexia and ADHD use Speechify to overcome any learning differences . Senior with low vision use Speechify to avoid straining their eyes.

Yes. Speechify has the most natural, human-sounding voices available on the market, and they’re getting better each month. Speechify’s text to speech has improved dramatically in the last two years alone with novel advancements from our research team. The voices are now indistinguishable from human voices. Speechify’s voices are also available in several different languages including Spanish text to speech , Portuguese text to speech , German text to speech , French text to speech , and over 50 others.

Voice cloning allows you to upload or record a few seconds of any speaker, with the speaker’s permission, and generate a clone of the voice. This allows you to listen to any email, PDF, or website in the new cloned voice . Speechify users love use voice cloning to listen to books in the voice of a parent, child, or partner. Voice cloning also allows you to clone your own voice, or a hired actor’s voice, so that you or your team can use it through our API or Studio products. Speechify has an AI dubbing product within Studio that allows anyone to clone a voice from a video or voiceover and then have that voice speak a new language.

Yes, we do! Please create an account to get started. You can also review our extensive documentation . This is the same API that currently powers all of our products, providing the highest quality AI speech on the market to tens of millions of users. This API includes instant voice cloning, language support, streaming, SSML and emotional controllability, speech marks, and much more.

Yes! If you would like to purchase text to speech plans in bulk, please contact our sales team for schools or teams . We work with large school districts and governments around the world to provide students with access to Speechify at scale. Speechify helps make education more accessible and improves student outcomes. We also work with companies to provide bulk access to our text to speech reading tools and our voice over studio platform focused on e-learning , voiceover creation, and dubbing .

#1 Text To Speech (TTS) Reader Online

Proudly serving millions of users since 2015

Type or upload any text, file, website & book for listening online, proofreading, reading-along or generating professional mp3 voice-overs.

I need to >

Play Text Out Loud

Reads out loud plain text, files, e-books and websites. Remembers text & caret position, so you can come back to listening later, unlimited length, recording and more.

Create Humanlike Voiceovers

The simplest most robust & affordable AI voice-over generating tool online. Mix voices, languages & speeds. Listen before recording. Unlimited!

Read any book in 10 minutes!! 73,530 book summaries with audio NEW

Additional Text-To-Speech Solutions

Turns your articles, PDFs, emails, etc. into podcasts, so you can listen to it on your own podcast player when convenient, with all the advantages that come with your podcast app.

SpeechNinja says what you type in real time. It enables people with speech difficulties to speak out loud using synthesized voice (AAC) and more.

Battle tested for years, serving millions of users, especially good for very long texts.

Need to read a webpage? Simply paste its URL here & click play. Leave empty to read about the Beatles 🎸

Books & Stories

Listen to some of the best stories ever written. We have them right here. Want to upload your own? Use the main player to upload epub files.

Simply paste any URL (link to a page) and it will import & read it out loud.

Chrome Extension

Reads out loud webpages, directly from within the page.

TTSReader for mobile - iOS or Android. Includes exporting audio to mp3 files.

NEW 🚀 - TTS Plugin

Make your own website speak your content - with a single line of code. Hassle free.

TTSReader Premium

Support our development team & enjoy ad-free better experience. Commercial users, publishers are required a premium license.

TTSReader reads out loud texts, webpages, pdfs & ebooks with natural sounding voices. Works out of the box. No need to download or install. No sign in required. Simply click 'play' and enjoy listening right in your browser. TTSReader remembers your text and position between sessions, so you can continue listening right where you left. Recording the generated speech is supported as well. Works offline, so you can use it at home, in the office, on the go, driving or taking a walk. Listening to textual content using TTSReader enables multitasking, reading on the go, improved comprehension and more. With support for multiple languages, it can be used for unlimited use cases .

Get Started for Free

Main Use Cases

Listen to great content.

Most of the world's content is in textual form. Being able to listen to it - is huge! In that sense, TTSReader has a huge advantage over podcasts. You choose your content - out of an infinite variety - that includes humanity's entire knowledge and art richness. Listen to lectures, to PDF files. Paste or upload any text from anywhere, edit it if needed, and listen to it anywhere and anytime.

Proofreading

One of the best ways to catch errors in your writing is to listen to it being read aloud. By using TTSReader for proofreading, you can catch errors that you might have missed while reading silently, allowing you to improve the quality and accuracy of your written content. Errors can be in sentence structure, punctuation, and grammar, but also in your essay's structure, order and content.

Listen to web pages

TTSReader can be used to read out loud webpages in two different ways. 1. Using the regular player - paste the URL and click play. The website's content will be imported into the player. (2) Using our Chrome extension to listen to pages without leaving the page . Listening to web pages with TTSReader can provide a more accessible, convenient, and efficient way of consuming online content.

Turn ebooks into audiobooks

Upload any ebook file of epub format - and TTSReader will read it out loud for you, effectively turning it into an audiobook alternative. You can find thousands of epub books for free, available for download on Project Gutenberg's site, which is an open library for free ebooks.

Read along for speed & comprehension

TTSReader enables read along by highlighting the sentence being read and automatically scrolling to keep it in view. This way you can follow with your own eyes - in parallel to listening to it. This can boost reading speed and improve comprehension.

Generate audio files from text

TTSReader enables exporting the synthesized speech with a single click. This is available currently only on Windows and requires TTSReader’s premium . Adhering to the commercial terms some of the voices may be used commercially for publishing, such as narrating videos.

Accessibility, dyslexia, etc.

For individuals with visual impairments or reading difficulties, listening to textual content, lectures, articles & web pages can be an essential tool for accessing & comprehending information.

Language learning

TTSReader can read out text in multiple languages, providing learners with listening as well as speaking practice. By listening to the text being read aloud, learners can improve their comprehension skills and pronunciation.

Kids - stories & learning

Kids love stories! And if you can read them stories - it's definitely the best! But, if you can't, let TTSReader read them stories for you. Set the right voice and speed, that is appropriate for their comprehension level. For kids who are at the age of learning to read - this can also be an effective tool to strengthen that skill, as it highlights every sentence being read.

Main Features

Ttsreader is a free text to speech reader that supports all modern browsers, including chrome, firefox and safari..

Includes multiple languages and accents. If on Chrome - you will get access to Google's voices as well. Super easy to use - no download, no login required. Here are some more features

Fun, Online, Free. Listen to great content

Drag, drop & play (or directly copy text & play). That’s it. No downloads. No logins. No passwords. No fuss. Simply fun to use and listen to great content. Great for listening in the background. Great for proof-reading. Great for kids and more. Learn more, including a YouTube we made, here .

Multilingual, Natural Voices

We facilitate high-quality natural-sounding voices from different sources. There are male & female voices, in different accents and different languages. Choose the voice you like, insert text, click play to generate the synthesized speech and enjoy listening.

Exit, Come Back & Play from Where You Stopped

TTSReader remembers the article and last position when paused, even if you close the browser. This way, you can come back to listening right where you previously left. Works on Chrome & Safari on mobile too. Ideal for listening to articles.

Vs. Recorded Podcasts

In many aspects, synthesized speech has advantages over recorded podcasts. Here are some: First of all - you have unlimited - free - content. That includes high-quality articles and books, that are not available on podcasts. Second - it’s free. Third - it uses almost no data - so it’s available offline too, and you save money. If you like listening on the go, as while driving or walking - get our free Android Text Reader App .

Read PDF Files, Texts & Websites

TTSReader extracts the text from pdf files, and reads it out loud. Also useful for simply copying text from pdf to anywhere. In addition, it highlights the text currently being read - so you can follow with your eyes. If you specifically want to listen to websites - such as blogs, news, wiki - you should get our free extension for Chrome

Export Speech to Audio Files

TTSReader enables exporting the synthesized speech to mp3 audio files. This is available currently only on Windows, and requires ttsreader’s premium .

Pricing & Plans

Online text to speech player
Chrome extension for reading webpages

$10.99 /mo OR $39 /yr

Premium TTSReader.com
Premium Chrome extension
Better support from the development team

Compare plans

Sister Apps Developed by Our Team

Speechnotes

Dictation & Transcription

Type with your voice for free, or automatically transcribe audio & video recordings

Buttons - Kids Dictionary

Turns your device into multiple push-buttons interactive games

Animals, numbers, colors, counting, letters, objects and more. Different levels. Multilingual. No ads. Made by parents, for our own kids.

Ways to Get In Touch, Feedback & Community

Visit our contact page , for various ways to get in touch with us, send us feedback and interact with our community of users & developers.

Best free text-to-speech software of 2024

Find the best free text-to-speech software for free text to voice conversion

Best overall
Best custom voice
Best for beginners
Best Microsoft extension
Best website reader
How we test

The best free text-to-speech software makes it simple and easy to improve accessibility and productivity in your workflows.

1. Best overall 2. Best custom voice 3. Best for beginners 4. Best Microsoft extension 5. Best website reader 6. FAQs 7. How we test

In the digital era, the need for effective communication tools has led to a surge in the popularity of text-to-speech (TTS) software, and finding the best free text-to-speech software is essential for a variety of users, regardless of budget constraints.

Text-to-speech software skillfully converts written text into spoken words using advanced technology, though often without grasping the context of the content. The best text-to-speech software not only accomplishes this task but also offers a selection of natural-sounding voices, catering to different preferences and project needs.

This technology is invaluable for creating accessible content, enhancing workplace productivity, adding voice-overs to videos, or simply assisting in proofreading by vocalizing written work. While many of today’s best free word processors , such as Google Docs, include basic TTS features that are accurate and continually improving, they may not meet all needs.

Stand-alone, app-based TTS tools, which should not be confused with the best speech-to-text apps , often have limitations compared to more comprehensive, free text-to-speech software. For instance, some might not allow the downloading of audio files, a feature crucial for creating content for platforms like YouTube and social media.

In our quest to identify the best free text-to-speech software, we have meticulously tested various options, assessing them based on user experience, performance, and output quality. Our guide aims to help you find the right text-to-speech tool, whatever your specific needs might be.

The best free text-to-speech software of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

The best free text-to-speech software overall

1. Natural Reader

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

Natural Reader offers one of the best free text-to-speech software experiences, thanks to an easy-going interface and stellar results. It even features online and desktop versions.

You'll find plenty of user options and customizations. The first is to load documents into its library and have them read aloud from there. This is a neat way to manage multiple files, and the number of supported file types is impressive, including eBook formats. There's also OCR, which enables you to load up a photo or scan of text, and have it spoken to you.

The second option takes the form of a floating toolbar. In this mode, you can highlight text in any application and use the toolbar controls to start and customize text-to-speech. This means you can very easily use the feature in your web browser, word processor and a range of other programs. There's also a browser extension to convert web content to speech more easily.

The TTS tool is available free, with three additional upgrades with more advanced features for power-users and professionals.

Read our full Natural Reader review .

^ Back to the top

The best free custom-voice text-to-speech software

2. Balabolka

There are a couple of ways to use Balabolka's top free text-to-speech software. You can either copy and paste text into the program, or you can open a number of supported file formats (including DOC, PDF, and HTML) in the program directly.

In terms of output, you can use SAPI 4 complete with eight different voices to choose from, SAPI 5 with two, or the Microsoft Speech Platform. Whichever route you choose, you can adjust the speech, pitch and volume of playback to create a custom voice.

In addition to reading words aloud, this free text-to-speech software can also save narrations as audio files in a range of formats including MP3 and WAV. For lengthy documents, you can create bookmarks to make it easy to jump back to a specific location and there are excellent tools on hand to help you to customize the pronunciation of words to your liking.

With all these features to make life easier when reading text on a screen isn't an option, Balabolka is the best free text-to-speech software around.

For more help using Balabolka, see out guide on how to convert text to speech using this free software.

The best free text-to-speech software for beginners

3. Panopreter Basic

Panopreter Basic is the best free text-to-speech software if you’re looking for something simple, streamlined, no-frills, and hassle-free.

It accepts plain and rich text files, web pages and Microsoft Word documents as input, and exports the resulting sound in both WAV and MP3 format (the two files are saved in the same location, with the same name).

The default settings work well for quick tasks, but spend a little time exploring Panopreter Basic's Settings menu and you'll find options to change the language, destination of saved audio files, and set custom interface colors. The software can even play a piece of music once it's finished reading – a nice touch you won't find in other free text-to-speech software.

If you need something more advanced, a premium version of Panopreter is available. This edition offers several additional features including toolbars for Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, the ability to highlight the section of text currently being read, and extra voices.

The best free text-to-speech extension of Microsoft Word

4. WordTalk

Developed by the University of Edinburgh, WordTalk is a toolbar add-on for Word that brings customizable text-to-speech to Microsoft Word. It works with all editions of Word and is accessible via the toolbar or ribbon, depending on which version you're using.

The toolbar itself is certainly not the most attractive you'll ever see, appearing to have been designed by a child. Nor are all of the buttons' functions very clear, but thankfully there's a help file on hand to help.

There's no getting away from the fact that WordTalk is fairly basic, but it does support SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 voices, and these can be tweaked to your liking. The ability to just read aloud individual words, sentences or paragraphs is a particularly nice touch. You also have the option of saving narrations, and there are a number of keyboard shortcuts that allow for quick and easy access to frequently used options.

The best free text-to-speech software for websites

5. Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader

Despite its basic looks, Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader has more to offer than you might first think. You can open numerous file formats directly in the program, or just copy and paste text.

Alternatively, as long as you have the program running and the relevant option enables, Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader can read aloud any text you copy to the clipboard – great if you want to convert words from websites to speech – as well as dialog boxes that pop up. One of the best free text-to-speech software right now, this can also convert text files to WAV format.

Unfortunately the selection of voices is limited, and the only settings you can customize are volume and speed unless you burrow deep into settings to fiddle with pronunciations. Additional voices are available for an additional fee which seems rather steep, holding it back from a higher place in our list.

The best free text-to-speech software: FAQs

What are the limitations of free tts software.

As you might expect, some free versions of TTS software do come with certain limitations. These include the amount of choices you get for the different amount of voices in some case. For instance, Zabaware gives you two for free, but you have to pay if you want more.

However, the best free software on this list come with all the bells and whistles that will be more than enough for the average user.

What is SAPI?

SAPI stands for Speech Application Programming Interface. It was developed by Microsoft to generate synthetic speech to allow computer programs to read aloud text. First used in its own applications such as Office, it is also employed by third party TTS software such as those featured in this list.

In the context of TTS software, there are more SAPI 4 voices to choose from, whereas SAPI 5 voices are generally of a higher quality.

Should I output files to MP3 or WAV?

Many free TTS programs give you the option to download an audio file of the speech to save and transfer to different devices.

MP3 is the most common audio format, and compatible with pretty much any modern device capable of playing back audio. The WAV format is also highly compatible too.

The main difference between the two is quality. WAV files are uncompressed, meaning fidelity is preserved as best as possible, at the cost of being considerably larger in size than MP3 files, which do compress.

Ultimately, however, MP3 files with a bit rate of 256 kbps and above should more than suffice, and you'll struggle to tell the difference when it comes to speech audio between them and WAV files.

How to choose the best free text-to-speech software

When selecting the best free text-to-speech software is best for you depends on a range of factors (not to mention personal preference).

Despite how simple the concept of text-to-speech is, there are many different features and aspects to such apps to take into consideration. These include how many voice options and customizations are present, how and where they operate in your setup, what formats they are able to read aloud from and what formats the audio can be saved as.

With free versions, naturally you'll want to take into account how many advanced features you get without paying, and whether any sacrifices are made to performance or usability.

Always try to keep in mind what is fair and reasonable for free services - and as we've shown with our number one choice, you can get plenty of features for free, so if other options seem bare in comparison, then you'll know you can do better.

How we test the best free text-to-speech software

Our testing process for the best free text-to-speech software is thorough, examining all of their respective features and trying to throw every conceivable syllable at them to see how they perform.

We also want to test the accessibility features of these tools to see how they work for every kind of user out there. We have highlighted, for instance, whether certain software offer dyslexic-friendly fonts, such as the number two on our list, Natural Reader.

We also bear in mind that these are free versions, so where possible we compare and contrast their feature sets with paid-for rivals.

Finally, we look at how well TTS tools meet the needs of their intended users - whether it's designed for personal use or professional deployment.

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Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he's written a book, ' The Making of Tomb Raider '. His second book, ' 50 Years of Boss Fights ', came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called ' Springboard '. He's usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that's about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.

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