Voice Dream Reader - Text to Speech
Description of App
Listen to PDF and Word documents, eBooks, articles, and Web pages anywhere with offline text-to-speech. Built-in integration with Dropbox, Bookshare, Pocket, Instapaper, and Gutenberg makes it easy to import read material. Sophisticated controls, silky-smooth synchronized word highlighting and autoscrolling puts you in charge of the listening experience. 60 amazing, life-like voices in 20 languages available. This app is fully accessible with VoiceOver.
People from all walks of life use Voice Dream Reader to learn, work, and play:
- Graduate student listens to scientific journal articles on her morning jog.
- Teacher lets his brilliant student with severe dyslexia take exams.
- Retiree listens to Web articles while doing chores around the house.
- College student with ADHD listens using synchronized highlighting to focus.
- Elementary school student's comprehension improves by 4 grade levels.
- Lawyer listens to case material during his long commute.
Customers who have tried many text-to-speech apps say this: Voice Dream Reader is the best mobile TTS, period. And we still constantly add new features and improve usability. We're committed to the goal that you will never need to buy another TTS app.
Expert Reviews:
"Voice Dream Reader is an awesome reading tool for iOS." - Brian S. Friedlander, Ph.D, AssistiveTek
"I think it is a great app that can be used for individual with a print disability whether middle, high school, post secondary, or adult users who need to easily access documents stored in cloud storage or from other Web services (newspapers)." - Carol Leynse Harpold, OT's with Apps
"If you are the parent of a special needs child as I am, you may be interested in using this as an assistive tool." - Amy Taylor, Special Apps, Special Kids
“It’s a text-to-speech app that lives up to its name because it works like a dream.” – rjmarmol.com
Voices
- Includes Heather, a fantastic female American English voice
- 60 voices in 20 languages from Acapela and NeoSpeech available through in-app purchase
- Languages: English, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Czech, Catalan, Polish, Turkish, Greek, and Arabic.
Loading and Managing Reading Material
- Text extraction from PDF files
- eBooks in DRM-free ePub format
- Plain text, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, Apple Pages, RTF and HTML files
- Dropbox integration
- Bookshare and Gutenberg integration
- Pocket and Instapaper integration
- Built-in Web Browser to extract text from Web pages
- Copy-paste via clipboard
- Text editor
- Language translation through in-app purchases
- Folders for organizing content
- Export full text to clipboard, printer, email, and other apps
- Export highlighted text
- Open the original Web page in Safari
Listening to Text
- Play-Pause with remote control enabled
- Remembers where you stopped in each book or article
- Shows elapsed time and remaining time
- Sleep timer
- Previous and next book or article
- 30-second rewind and fast forward
- Full sentence rewind and fast forward
- Change reading speed on the fly. 50-500 words per minute
- Change voice on the fly
- Remembers the voice used for each item
- Playlist
- Continues reading when you lock the screen
Visual Interaction with Text
- Blazing fast vertical scrolling
- Synchronized word and line highlighting
- Full screen mode to hide the controls
- Focused Reading Mode with reduced text area and auto-scrolling
- Full-text search
- Table of content for ePub and DAISY books
- Bookmarking
- Sentence highlighting
- Customizable font and font size
- Includes OpenDyslexia font
- Preset light and dark color theme, plus a fully customizable color theme
- Built-in dictionary
Notes:
- It is not possible to load DRM-protected books from iBooks, Kindle and Nook.
- Instapaper requires paid subscription for third party access.
Version
Free or Paid
Compatibility
Device(s) App Was Tested On
Accessibility Comments
This is a very accessible app, and the developers seem truly committed to improving it. Organizing content is somewhat difficult and may require sighted assistance, but downloading and reading content works very well. As of the latest release, 2.7.2, the developer has fixed the issues noted below with regards to the inaccessibility of the text box. It is now possible to read by words, characters and lines through the text with voiceOver.
VoiceOver Performance
Button Labeling
Usability
Other Comments
The samples for peter (happy) and peter (sad) which previously did not play are now working properly.
Comments
#1 which voices are available as
which voices are available as in app purchases? Any names we might recognise?
#2 Acapela voices
All of the Acapela voices are available as in-app purchases. Read2Go, the official bookshare app, gives access to two of the US english voices, but their are tons more in this app, and they're only 2 dollars compared to the 10 or 20 that most apps charge for downloading those voices. You can preview all the Acapela voices at http://www.acapela-group.com/speech-synthesis-voices.html
#3 Not easy to navigate inside the book.
One thing, which is definitely missing in this app is an ability to easily navigate inside the reading book. I have not find the way to skip back or forward a small amount of text. It is possible to use the slider at the buttom of the App to move by 10 percents of the book, however to skip several minutes, no chance, or at least I did not find the way to do so even after reading the help.
Would be wanderful to have buttons to move back or forward for the predefined amount, would be even better to be able to configure those buttons in settings.
Or at least to be able to fast forward or rewind while press and hold keys at the buttom of the book page.
Will try to contact developer to see, if such changes could be implemented.
#4 predefined bookmarks and search feature
Although a fast forward option would be quite useful, their are actually two ways of navigating through books. First, the search feature lets you search for specific text in the book. Each result is followed by a play button which you can press to instantly move you to the specified location in the book. Furthermore, in formatted books, such as those downloaded from bookshare, their is a button called "bookmarks" when you are inside the book, most easily accessed by touching the play-pause button and 1-finger flicking to the left. There you can access either predefined bookmarks, such as chapters, or user defined custom bookmarks. Hope this helps.
#5 I have just contacted the
I have just contacted the developer of the App, so hopefully they will be able to provide the ability to skip some text inside the reading book.
The ability to search and bookmarks are definitely useful features, however I don't think, they will help if you need to skip backward or forward 2 pages, or I just realized, I have missed something at the beginning of last page and would like to come back to re-read it.
#6 I question the legality of bookshare integration
Do any of you know whether bookshare has sanctioned the use of voice dream reader to read out the bookshare books? Given the fact that they have their own app, they may not allow third-party developers access. I don't know.
#7 Other apps out there which read Bookshare content.
There are other apps out there which read bookshare content, such as Indaisy and Daisy Worm. At least, I'm pretty sure these two apps are supposed to be able to read Bookshare content. Maybe they got permission from Bookshare before putting that functionality into their app. I don't know.
Thanks,
Shersey
#8 Version 2.7.0
(taken from the ITunes app store)
What's New in Version 2.7.0
- Availability of new voices from NeoSpeech: Paul and Julie.
- New voices from Acapela: Will, Micah, and Raul.
- Localization for French, Spanish, Catalan, Chinese, and Russian. (Big thanks to volunteers who did this!)
- Add bookmark button.
- 30-second rewind and fast forward buttons.
- Go-to-percent button next to the slider when VoiceOver is on.
- Export full text.
- Export highlighted text.
- Share what you're listening to via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, and email (iOS 6 only)
- Open in Safari for items that originated from Web pages.
- Bookmarks for the built-in Web Browser.
- Increased maximum font size.
- Marking multiple articles "Unread" in edit mode.
- Option for Pocket full synch: Archived or deleted articles in Pocket will be deleted in Voice Dream.
- Bluetooth headset and speaker controls for play and pause are enabled.
- Voice download now possible over mobile data network (3G/4G).
- Focused Reading Mode now available on iPhone and iPod touch. Pinch the text area to activate.
- Disabled idle timer when the Reader is open so the screen won't auto-lock.
- Minor improvements for use with VoiceOver.
- Advanced Setting: You can now turn off going to full-screen automatically.
- Advanced Setting: You can disable rewind button from ever changing the reading location. This is now the default behavior.
- Advanced Setting: You can assign rewind and fast forward button on the remote control to the 30 second rewind and fast forward.
- Fixed: Deleted articles not removed from the home screen when offline.
- Fixed: Occasionally losing the reading location.
- Fixed: Some articles from Pocket causing the app to crash.
- Fixed: Sleep timer activation invoking Play-Pause button first.
...
#9 worth picking up
Is this app worth picking up?
#10 It's free to try, so go for it
The app is free to try, so download it and give it a whirl. I did, and even hooked my Bookshare account up and grabbed a few books. My personal problem with the app is that I really hate A Capella voices, but if the dev offered other solutions, even free ones like ESpeak (yeah, I know most people hate it) I'd probably buy it. There is no daisy navigation, so that's something to keep in mind; the app is an article/book reader, not a daisy reader at present. Still, as I said, you can try it out to see if you like it, then buy the full version if you want to. The trial has full functionality, but it stops reading after a couple sentences, so you have to keep hitting play to read more.
#11 I just bought the app a few
I just bought the app a few hours ago, I cannot get the Peter happy, Peter sad, and will voices to play the demos. So I don't know whether I would want to download them. Is anyone else having this problem?
#12 Hi Sean
Hey Sean my peter voices played. I didn't buy them, but the preview did work. I really like this app, but one feature I liked was broken this update the sleep timer. It now looks like the timer in tune in where I can see strt or cancil but no flicker itum. In the older app it worked which was pretty sweet. Now however I have the Paul voice, so I guess its a trade off.
#13 Same problem with preview
I have the same problem with the preview not playing for those voices. The two additional Peter voices have never previewed since I bought the app several weeks ago. Strange that they work for others. Possibly it's a geographical problem, and might depend upon your location. I don't like the Peter voice anyway, and I'm guessing that having him happy or sad wouldn't alter that.
#14 Voice Dream Reader--Inapp purchases
I have purchased several voices for the app but do not have VIFI and hence want to download them on PC using Itunes. Can I? How? Please do help.
Ketan
#15 Not all there yet, but still worthwhile
Here is a really beautiful reader that is not fully accessible, Contrary to what is stated above. Most specifically, as is stated in their own help document, there is no VoiceOver access yet to the text screen which is what will be needed to be able to fine tune reading to the sentence and paragraph level, look up words, copy text, etc. They state that this will be available in the future and I look forward to it. I would appreciate it if the person who contacted the developers would share how they did so, as I am not easily finding that information.
It connects beautifully with Bookshare once you enable that feature with your Bookshare ID. You don't get Bookshare descriptions of books as you do in Read2Go, but you can use Safari for that and I don't think that's what we need the app for.
What we get in this app is the ability to read books using other voices besides the iPhone voices and the heather voice in Read2Go. The default voice in Voice Dream Reader is also Heather. To my ear, their implementation of Heather is more fluid than in read2Go.
What we also get is the ability to read other documents and articles with these voices. Of particular value, is the ability to read books and documents in other languages using these more human sounding voices. I personally prefer less human voices in English, my first language, but if I want to read in Spanish, where I do have some skill, I struggle with any of the iphone voices.
Even with the current lack of control we have using this app, I think its worth the price.
For those who got stuck in trying out the Peter voices, download the lite version of the app. There are no demoas but if you tap on the option to try them, which is free in that version, they will download and work. One thing missing, however, is the option to really try out their more expensive voices, Paul and Julie, which are not in the lite version. Since the voices really sound different at the speed I prefer I can't really tell if I like them enough to actually use them if purchased.
#16 podcast
I can do a podcast demoing voices and such if it would be helpful. I have Paul anyway, so at least you could hear it.
#17 Paul and Julie
hello,
Thank you for the tip about the voices which demos won't play. That was very helpful! The Paul and Julie voices are actually available as free apps for the iphone which you can paste or type text into and have it read to you. You can also change the speed to something pretty close to the voice Dream speeds and quality as well, so that should be able to give you a pretty good idea whether you would like those voices. Here is a direct link to the Paul voice. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/neopaul/id334254353?mt=8 The same company also has the Julie voice and another one called Kate. Hope this helps!
#18 Upcomming feature
Hello,
According to the developper who is really interested in accessibility,we will be able to use the text box in the upcomming version. Apparently, the rotor will be usable to read the text by word, phrase etc. I encourage all of you to give this app a positive review on the app store.
For French speaking users, I've made a podcast in French to demonstrate the app.
Enjoy
#19 Voice Dream Crashes
Hi, Voice Dream crashes everytime I open it now. I have restarted the phone. I didn't want to uninstall it as I think I would lose all the books I downloaded from BookShare. If anyone can ease my mind about this, I would be very grateful. thanks a lot in advance.
#20 Voice dream crashes
Hi,
You should really contact the author if you have a problem. Here, I have no problem with Voice dream. But the developper is really willing to help. Unfortunately, in my opinion, your best choice for the time being is to uinstall and reinstall the app. I'm quite sure that the author will tell you the same thing. I don't use Bookshare, it may be a problem with its implementation in VDR.
Good luck
Sof
#21 Now even more accessible in 2.7.2
Great news for VoiceOver users in the latest update - we can now access the text box!
What's New in Version 2.7.2
#22 New problem
yes this is all true but now it seems I can't use the other voices for reading, just VoiceOver. Has anyone found differently?
#23 press play
In fact, you can read using VoiceOver only when TTS playback is stopped. Just try to use the rotor to select a word and then press play. The TTS will start reading from that point.
HTH,
Sof
#24 the real answer
Well, I figured it out. And, it's not true, you can use voiceover to read. At the home screen choose voice settings. It talks about starred voices being the preferred voices. If nothing is starred, when you press play, it will read with voiceover. However, voiceover is not reading the stars. I just have the Heather voice in my paid version, so double tapping it apparently starred it and I now can read with her. Double tapping her again turns the star off and I can read with voiceover. It is not an option in the settings you get to while playing a book. I'm sure they didn't think about this. I'm going to suggest they make it an option there also.
#25 I was half wrong
OK. I was wrong. Now I can't go back to reading with voiceover. Well, I will suggest they add that option as it has its uses. and is clearly possible.
#26 It's really strange since VO
It's really strange since VO has no TTs seen by this ap. A bug? Personally, If I want to read with VoiceOver, I would use iBooks it does a better job especially when you have to deal with navigation within the book. The purpose of VDR is to read using a far better voice IMHO
#27 Listening with VO Voice
I'm the developer of Voice Dream Reader.
As of the last release, I've made the content of the text box on the screen visible to VoiceOver. VO will read the line of text that you tap on, and you can use Word and Character options on the Rotor.
But in addition to that, when you double tap on the text box away from line you just tapped, VoiceOver will read the content of the entire text box. I must admit that I didn't develop for this behavior on purpose, but the accessibility feature of iOS is not well documented for developers, so making something work with VO is an exercise of trial and error. It happened inadvertently.
I'll continue to improve VO support through trial and error. It'll get better and better, but it may not a straight path. My next goal is to make word definition, highlighting and note taking work with VO, which promises to be even more challenging, because even Apple's own iBooks doesn't let you do that with VO on.
Winston.
#28 VO Reading
Hello. Absolutely love the app. Thank you for developing it, and for being so open to improving it. Following the instructions listed above, however, voiceOver only read a few sentences-- something like maybe half a page, rather than reading continuously. Is this the correct behavior, or was I doing something wrong? Thanks,
Tangela
#29 That seems to be the
That seems to be the behavior. It's actually reading all the text visible in the text box until you tap something else. I'm not sure if it is possible to use the VO voice to read continuously and auto scroll to the next page - I don't have much control over the VO voice. Then there is the question whether you actually want to use the default VO voice rather than the voices available in voice dream. Your opinion?
#30 In most apps, flicking down
In most apps, flicking down with 2 fingers activates a read continuously mode with voiceOver, however this does not work with Voice dream.
Personally, I would like the ability to switch between the VO voice and acapela voices, as for certain material I prefer VO and for others the tts. However, given the size of both applications, I would prefer not to have to keep both voiceDream and the read2go native bookshare app on the phone to get bookshare materials.
#31 Hi,In my opinion, the way
Hi,
In my opinion, the way the text box is actually usable is enough since Voice Dream's purpose is to read using Acapela's voices which are definetely far better than the VO's built-in voices. Actually, Voice Dream only displays the text currently being read by the TTS and it's suffiscient to have a misunderstood word spelled. Apparently, it has already been a pain to get this text box accessible. Personnally, if I'd like to read a book using VoiceOver, I just take iBooks or another one since there are many which do the job very well. I think that making the text box more accessible is not a priority and we should concentrate on more useful features.
Again, it's only my opinion. :)
#32 I was wondering if it would
I was wondering if it would be possible to change the default behavior when adding books to a folder. Currently, when you add books to a folder, the books remain in the home screen, but are also available in the folder. It would be nice to move files to the folders so that the folders show up on the home screen instead of the large list of books. Even better would be folders within folders, so that you could organize the books by say, author, and then within each author have the folders for their particular series. This would be very similar to the kindle collections feature.
#33 Version 2.7.3 released
Yet more improvements for VoiceOver and BookShare users:
What's New in Version 2.7.3
#34 2.7.4
New voices Bridget and Kate from NeoSpeech are now available!
Plus Google Drive support!
Voice Dream Reader is updated every month with great new features, and you always get them for free. Please spread the word and tell your friends and colleagues. We will continue making Voice Dream Reader even better.
Also in this release:
- Increased maximum font size on iPad to 70
- Select All in iTunes import
- Swedish voice Mia is fixed
Join our community on Facebook and Twitter to find out what's coming! The links are in Settings
#35 Kate
When updating this app, the voice Brigit seems to work fine, however the Kate voice shows up as unavailable for some reason. I can play the sample, but for some reason can not purchase the voice. Has anyone else had this difficulty, or know why this might be?
Thanks,
Tangela
#36 Kate
Kate should be available for sale now. If it is still not available, terminate the app (Delete it in the task tray at the bottom), and start it again.
Winston.
#37 Hello and thank you for your
Hello and thank you for your prompt response. Unfortunately, quitting and relaunching the app did not change anything. I am using an iphone 5 with the latest IOS.
#38 working now
Whatever the issue was, it seems to have been resolved now. Thank you for all your work.