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Reading through a chunk of text can be time-consuming and difficult. For some, reading the text is nearly impossible as it gets clumped together and mixed with other words. For others, the need for a human and realistic voice is great and will benefit a project well. For all, having a dedicated text to speech converter can save the day and make your life much easier.
Why Use a Text to Speech Converter
Having the ability to listen to a body of text can be freeing and necessary for multiple reasons. Many people use text to speech converters for plenty of different purposes. Some video game designers use a converter to provide a voice to their characters. Writers use the technology to listen to how someone else would read their work without bias.
For some people, reading the text itself is the difficult part – be it due to blindness or dyslexia. Listening to the spoken body of texts grants access to the information for some. No matter what your intent for a text to speech converter, they are useful in everyday life and having one that shows quality features is becoming more and more necessary.
Before you begin shopping for a quality text to audio converter, you should understand what purpose you have for wanting one. Any purpose is valid, but the type of converter you purchase could vary based on why you need it. Understand why you want a text to speech converter and then be on the lookout for one with the following features.Â
Features of a Quality Converter
Finding a great text to audio converter is rather simple and can be done by anyone. Simply look out for the following features to help you indicate if a converter is quality or not.
Natural Voices
One of the best features of any great text converter is the ability to use realistic and natural sounding voices. The best converters offer users the capability to hear their text in a human voice that has tone, expression, and feeling. Most text converters implement a robotic and monotone voice to speak the text, but the best attempt to make it more realistic.
Real Rhythm
Along with the feeling of realistic speech comes the idea of a realistic rhythm. You can have the most natural sounding voice portraying your text, but if the rhythm is robotic and stale, you won’t be convinced. Having a feature that allows you to tell the program where you want pauses, breathes, specific pronunciations, etc. makes a huge difference in the realism of the voice.
Sharing and Saving
Keeping the files that you’ve converted to speech should be a basic feature included in every paid for converter. Some major programs do not offer this feature so be careful when hunting for your converter. Often times you’ll find that you’re not the one in need of a text to speech converter, and the person who is, is unable to work it on their own. Sharing capabilities should also be included as a feature of the text to speech converter you purchase.
