Description of App
2021 Apple Design Award Winner! Voice Dream Reader lets you listen to any document and ebook using text-to-speech. Featured by Apple as Best New App and App of the Day in 81 countries and part of App Store Permanent Collections in Education.
“Both experts recommend Voice Dream Reader as the best app in the text-to-speech space.” - Wired
“This app is one of the best educational finds of my entire career.” - Forbes
“As a user myself and as a mother of a child with dyslexia, I am blown away by the features of Voice Dream.” - Quartz
“Voice Dream Reader is hailed by many as the best mobile text-to-speech (TTS) app.” - Examiner
Text-to-Speech
- One premium Acapela voice of your choice free with the purchase of the app.
- 36 built-in iOS voices in 27 languages are also available for free.
- 200+ additional premium voices in 30 languages from Acapela, NeoSpeech and Ivona available through in-app purchases.
- Correct pronunciation with your own pronunciation dictionary.
- All voices work offline and play in the background even with the screen locked.
Supported Document Formats
- PDF, Plain text, MS Word, MS PowerPoint, RTF, and Google Docs.
- Web articles.
- Bookshare Books.
- EPUB eBooks. (DRM-free books only. Kindle, iBooks and most commercial eBook platforms are not supported.)
- DAISY text-based books and audiobook.
- Audiobooks in MP3, MP4 or zipped MP3 format.
- Rich text and image support for all documents.
Built-in Scanner
- Scan paper documents with the camera for text-to-speech.
- State-of-the-art A.I. is fast and accurate, even in poor lighting conditions.
- Works entirely on device: No need for internet and your data stays private.
- Only languages using Latin alphabets are currently supported.
Reading Styles
- Tee-up a list of articles and play while you drive, walk or run.
- Spoken word is highlighted to improve comprehension and retention.
- Auto-scrolling and full screen, distraction-free mode to help reader focus.
- Finger reading. For beginners to read by at running a finger under each word.
- Pac-Man. Harvard and MIT developed speed-reading method for everyone to read at 2x speed with no loss of comprehension.
- High contrast and large font size for low vision readers.
- Optimized for VoiceOver, Braille and switch control.
Tools
- Recognize text for scanned PDF documents.
- Bookmarking, text highlighting and annotation. Highlights and notes can be exported.
- Full-text search.
- Built-in dictionary.
- Automicatically skip text in PDF header and footer.
Content Sources
- Native support for Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, Pocket, Instapaper and Evernote.
- Native access to Bookshare.
- Safari extension to save Web pages and Web addresses.
- Support for Box and OneDrive via iOS Document Picker.
Library Synchronization
- Your entire library, including folders, reading locations, bookmarks and annotations are synchronized across all your devices using iCloud Drive
Comments
zipped mp3s
zipped mp3's work. i am to getting the same thing described above but if i give it a bit it seems to sort things out. its almost like its loading the zip still. any more help on deciding if this is a bug or not would help.
using the text box with v 4.0 and Voiceover
I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this bug?
I often use the text box in VDR to read content, either with a braille display or with Voiceover's speech. However, I've noticed when finishing one page of text and moving to the next page, the first line or so of text is skipped.
I was able to fix this bug on my iPhone by uninstalling and and re-installing the app, but cannot fix the problem on my iPad no matter how many times I uninstall and re-install.
Any thoughts are welcome
Text box and Braille
I've seen it too, even with the latest version (4.0.4 as of the time of this writing). The bug was supposedly fixed in 4.0.3, but I keep experiencing it.
Version 4.0.5
What's New in Version 4.0.5
- Updated for iOS 10.
- Minor bug fixes and enhancements.
Great news! iOS 10 comes with many free, high quality TTS voices, including Siri voices. Go to iOS Settings, General, Accessibility, Speech, and Voices. Select the language you want to use, and you'll see all the available voices. The enhanced versions of the voices are higher in audio quality, but note that they use a lot more storage. After download is complete, go back to Voice Dream Reader. Go to the voice selection screen and tap on the Refresh button at the bottom. Newly downloaded iOS voices will be available for use.
Safari
Can Voice Dream Reader be used when browsing the web with Safari?
Oops, I read the description again and noticed that web articles can be read using VDR.
playback issues
hi all, my wife and i note that in voicedream whether on ipad or iphone for us in ios 10, there is an error when playback. sometimes, when we have listened to a title and double tapped with 2 fingers to pause and then do the same to resume, we hear no sound, and when we supposedly navigate back by 30 seconds and hit the play button, we are taken to that spot, or sometimes, even further back in the book. do other people have issues with audio not playing even when it is supposed to be? i thought, that when we downloaded content from dropbox, or somewhere erse, that it would be perminantly on the device and not streaming it?
Neispeech voices
Hello. I have several Neospeech voices. Yesterday, out of nowhere, the voices suddenly stopped working; or rather, the voices began telling me that this product was not registered and that I needed to contact "Voice Text" regarding purchasing the voices. Has anyone else had this problem? Thanks.
NeoSpeech problem
I have seen several reports today of NeoSpeech voices no longer working properly in Voice Dream Reader: in my case, when i opened a book this morning which NeoSpeech James had been reading till now, he still worked, but before starting to read the text he said something about not being registered the first time I opened the book, and something about a test the second time; If I remember rightly, James is the only neoSpeech voice I have, so I changed to a different voice for that particular book for the time being. However, just before I saw this forum post, I read a tweet from the developers of Voice Dream reader, which reads as follows:
NOTE: If you’re experiencing issues with NeoSpeech voices, we’re aware of it & a fix will be released shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Here's hoping we'll soon get our NeoSpeech voices back, working properly without any extra comments about not being registered or about a test version of the voices currently running!
Thanks, Clare
Thanks for the post. I think it is great information about the Neospeech voices. I've got five of the voices, and it's very annoying to have them not useable.
Definitely helpful! I was
Definitely helpful! I was also experiencing the same problem. I'm glad to know that a fix is on the way. Thanks for the comment.
Thanks a lot, Clare!
I too am having this problem. I'm glad I'm not alone in it, and that hopefully we'll get a fix for it soon. Thanks for letting us know, Clare.
Help needed with purchased voices.
Hi all:
I downloaded Voice Dream Reader yesterday and, so far, I really love this app. However, when I downloaded the app it said that I would get to choose a voice to start reading and so I chose the Acapela voice of Heather, just to see how it worked. The problem is that, even though I have gone through the settings many times, I cannot make Heather read anything. When I do the command to read, it is VoiceOver that reads the text to me instead of the Voice I chose. On the other hand, when I tried Reading with A different iOS voice, it worked like a charm. Can somebody tell me how to do this properly? Maybe there is something that I am missing. Please help because I really want to buy a few voices that will make my reading time more pleasant. I will be going for the NeoSpeech and Ivona voices for I think they are the best voices out there. By the way, I am using an iPhone 7 Plus with the latest iOS version. Thanks in advance for your always greatly appreciated help.
Have a very nice day/night, everyone.
adding multiple files to vdr at once
Hi basically my subject says it all. I have my e-text book in iCloud drive. It is split up in to 41 files. It's a pain trying to add each individual file. So is there a way to add multiple files at once. ps. there all DOCX files. thanks in advance.
Version 4.4.1
What's New in Version 4.4.1
- Updated for iOS 11.
- Added support for loading documents using iOS 11 File Browser.
- Added support for iOS 11 Drag and Drop for files and URLs.
- Minor bug fixes and enhancements.
VDR storage?
VDR is using a large amount of space on my ipad mini. Is there a way to store VDR contents in icloud, or similar, but so I can still access the contents easily, but free up storage on ipad?
Thanks for advice.
Problem finding the play button
Hi! Since the last update, I have encountered some problems. When I open a book, voiceover becomes stuck on the text of the book, and I can't move toward the play button and toward all the other buttons. I've discovered that, if i double tap some times on the text, the buttons reappear, but it's unpredictable, meaning that I don't know how many times do I have to tap. I'm the only one having this problem? I've an iPhone SE with the last IOS.
Page numbers not visible
Hi everyone,
On my iPhone 8 running the latest IOS with Voice Dream Reader, I can no longer find page numbers in DAISY text files or PDF files while using VoiceOver. I have reported the issue to the developer and am told that the page numbers are still there but VoiceOver cannot find them. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have begun noticing this since the latest release of Voice Dream Reader.
Problem downloading Bookshare files
Hello everyone,
Since the latest release of Voice Dream Reader, I can download only EPUB files from Bookshare from within the app and not DAISY text files. My setting on Bookshare clearly indicates that I prefer DAISY files but Voice Dream tries to get only EPUB files. Has anyone else encountered this problem? I have an iPhone 8 and am running the latest IOS.
Missing a purchased Voice
Hello again everyone,
I have yet another problem to report with Voice Dream Reader.
I had purchased the Kendra voice to use with this app years ago but I am being asked to pay for it again after deleting and redownloading the app. Here's what happened.
Some time ago, I changed my Apple ID from an email address I no longer have to my iCloud email, and everything worked quite smoothly with all of my apps, including Voice Dream Reader. I was able to use Kendra reliably as before. However, since I began to encounter other problems with the app, I decided to delete it from my iPhone 8 and then reinstalled it immediately. All of my settings for the app were successfully restored from icloud accept for the setting related to Kendra. When I proceeded to download this voice I was told to pay for it yet again. I have reported the issue to the developer but have heard nothing. Does anyone know any possible solutions to this problem? Thank you for your help.
Having trouble performing actions on Voice dream Reader
Hi, everyone,
Here's an example to explain what I mean.
Whenever I try to flag a document of any kind, or delete a book, or try to perform any other such actions, Voice Dream Reader either reads the text of the book by word or character, or skips completely to another book or button.
I've checked the rotor in the speech settings with no luck. I've also removed the app from the app switcher and turned off the phone completely then restarted it, but nothing seems to help the problem.
I've also noticed that before when I used to type in page numbers or percentages in the edit box, the numbers used to appear in a phone pad system. Now, though, the regular keyboard appears and I have to switch from letters to numbers, then type the number using the number row. Is there a way I can return the key pad back to the phone key pad style?
Thank you in advance for any help.
hey
hey everyone
I'm from India
I'd love to buy this app. but this app is way too costly here in India. and unfortunately, the free trial version of this app, voice dream reader lite is also not available in this country.
I am considerring to sign up for bookshare. so was thinking to buy this app.
will the developer be bringing this app to India with a much more affordable cost? as many people here use bookshare :)
thank you
India
hey thank you for the…
hey
thank you for the suggestion. dolphin easy reader is available here. I just had one question/concern related to it.
will I be able to read my books with the voice I use as a voiceover voice? IE, the IOS voices? like voice dream reader promisses?
:) it offers more flexibility compared to many readers so I posted here in case the developer reads this forum and considers doing something for the Indian population :)
@Khushi
Yes, I was going to recommend EasyReader, it works very much like VoiceDream.
And yes, you can use those nice voices that you use in VoiceDream, Though you do have to pay for them.
Legality of integration with bookshare
Hi one other book reading app is read to Go which is very limited compared to VoiceDream Reader
Dolphin Easy reader get's the job done.
Consider buying Voice Dream during one of their anual sales. I think it's in Jun or August. Till then, easy reader will get the job done.
Eloquence voice option
I would love to see Voice Dream have the eloquence voice as an option. I know they already have Fred, but eloquence would be great to have as another voice option. Just a thought...
Can't download from bookshare?
Hey so I've tried downloading a book from Bookshare within the app but for some reason the download button doesn't show up. I can only view book details. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Edit: Wasn't the app's fault; I just forgot to renoo my subscription. Works fine now.
I am not impressed
I bought the bundle. Color me surprised when I open Voice Dream Reader, can't find the next button, come across unlabeled buttons, and can't get any of the gestures to work with Voiceover enabled (and they only work half the time with Voiceover disabled). Yikes. I've requested a refund. I'm not paying 30 bucks for an app with unlabeled buttons and broken gestures.
Can't replicate that behaviour
It's really unfortunate that Voice Dream Reader doesn't work for you. I'm using the most current version of the app, and all the buttons are clearly labelled and the gestures work correctly. However, just in case it makes any difference, I'm using an iPhone X S and bought the app many years ago before apps could be bundled.
are you shure you didn't…
are you shure you didn't accidentally turn on screen recognition?
None of that over here.
App
Getting an iPad 9 in Jan and want to know if it works well with iPad and smart keyboard?
screen recognition
It's definitely not on. I had to turn it on in order to find the next button on the very first screen before I turned it off again. I wonder if this has something to do with iOS 15.
Update: Well, apparently screen recognition decided to be a sneaky bugger and turn itself back on. I distinctly remember turning it off. I still can't get the gestures to work though. Does Voiceover need to be turned off to make them work?
Highlighting with voiceover
Hi! How do I highlight text using voiceover? I can select the text but then can’t find the option to highlight.
Stop Reading Page Numbers in BookShare Downloads?
I absolutely love VoiceDream Reader. My one question is whether there is a way to stop it from reading the page numbers in books that I’ve downloaded from BookShare. When crossing from one page to the next, it reads out the page number as if it were part of the sentence in the book, which is a bit distracting. Is there a way to stop it from doing this? Thanks in advance for any ideas.