Voice Dream Reader Text to Speech App

Author: Ian C. Langtree - Writer/Editor for Disabled World (DW)
Published: 6 Mar 2013 - Updated: 3 Oct 2023
Publication Type: Product Release / Update

Contents: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Related Publications

Synopsis: Voice Dream Reader for mobile devices can load and extract text from many sources and file formats and is fully accessible with VoiceOver.

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 auto-scrolling puts you in charge of the listening experience.

Introduction

Voice Dream Reader can load and extract text from many sources and file formats. After extraction, Voice Dream performs additional processing to optimize the text for text-to-speech. Ads on web pages are stripped out, page numbers go away and strange characters are removed, so you can focus on what matters: the content.

Main Content

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 auto-scrolling puts you in charge of the listening experience. This app is fully accessible with VoiceOver.

Voices

• Includes Heather, a fantastic female American English voice.
• Features 60 different voices in 20 languages from Acapela and NeoSpeech available through in-app purchase.

Languages include:

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 Open-Dyslexia font.
• Preset light and dark color theme, plus a fully customizable color theme.
• Built-in dictionary.

New Features Include:

Powerful New Controls for Speech

• Save speech rate for each article or book.
• Adjust default speech rate, pitch and volume for each voice.
• Personal pronunciation dictionary. Change how a word is pronounced or skip any text.

Configurable Text Navigation

• Option to scroll page by page for visual reading.
• Footer to indicate page, percentage, chapter, and navigation unit.
• Set rewind and fast forward navigation unit to sentence, paragraph, page, chapter, highlights, bookmarks, 15, 30, and 60 seconds.

New Voices

• New Chinese and Japanese voices from NeoSpeech.

Other UI Improvements

• Option to turn off word or line highlighting.
• Sort by Date, Title, Author and Size for each folder.
• Two finger double-tap on the text to play or pause.
• Save the last visual location in addition to the speech cursor.
• This is a fantastic product and one of the best, if not the best, in the Text to Speech category of assistive technology products.

Author Credentials: Ian is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Disabled World, a leading resource for news and information on disability issues. With a global perspective shaped by years of travel and lived experience, Ian is a committed proponent of the Social Model of Disability-a transformative framework developed by disabled activists in the 1970s that emphasizes dismantling societal barriers rather than focusing solely on individual impairments. His work reflects a deep commitment to disability rights, accessibility, and social inclusion. To learn more about Ian's background, expertise, and accomplishments, visit his full biography.