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Is there a free (ad supported?) online tool without login that reads text that you paste into it? I often would like to listen to a blog post instead of readin

by mg 2y ago

Is there a free (ad supported?) online tool without login that reads text that you paste into it? I often would like to listen to a blog post instead of reading it, but haven't found an easy, quick solution yet. I tried piping text through OpenAI's tts-1-hd, model and it is the first one I ever found that is human like enough for me to like listening to it. So I could write a tool for my own usecase that pipes the text to tts-1-hd and plays the audio. But maybe there is already something with a public web interface out there?

jasonjmcghee 2y ago
There is on iOS. No ads. "Reader" by Eleven Labs. I haven't used it that much but have listened to some white papers and blogs (some of which were like 45 minutes) and it "just worked". Even let's you click text you want to jump to. And it's Eleven Labs quality- which unless I've fallen behind the times is the highest quality TTS by a margin.
- jangxx 2y ago
  There's also the built-in "Speak Selection" feature you can enable in the accessibility settings.
- ukuina 2y ago
  Reader is on a pretty good path to a monthly subscription model. Great audio quality, large selection of voices, and support for long-form input text.
infinita740 2y ago
I use ms edge for this exact use case. Works well enough on any platform
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Yup, I second this. The only thing I use Edge for. I did a bit of research and it seems to be, by far, the highest-quality TTS engine that is free and you can do things like pause and continue. There are other options that have higher-quality voices, but they aren't free.
  - kvn8888 2y ago
    I use the wavenet extension and use my 1M character free quota from Google cloud
Jaxan 2y ago
Both windows and macos (the operating systems) have this built-in under accessibility. It’s worth a try and I use it sometimes when I want to read something while cooking.
beAbU 2y ago
Good old Microsoft Sam? It'll sound like Stephen Hawking is reading it to you!
m463 2y ago
firefox does this directly. Reader mode has a headphones symbol to read webpage text.

by mg 2y ago

jasonjmcghee 2y ago

There is on iOS. No ads. "Reader" by Eleven Labs. I haven't used it that much but have listened to some white papers and blogs (some of which were like 45 minutes) and it "just worked". Even let's you click text you want to jump to. And it's Eleven Labs quality- which unless I've fallen behind the times is the highest quality TTS by a margin.

jangxx 2y ago
There's also the built-in "Speak Selection" feature you can enable in the accessibility settings.
ukuina 2y ago
Reader is on a pretty good path to a monthly subscription model. Great audio quality, large selection of voices, and support for long-form input text.

infinita740 2y ago

I use ms edge for this exact use case. Works well enough on any platform

crazygringo 2y ago
Yup, I second this. The only thing I use Edge for. I did a bit of research and it seems to be, by far, the highest-quality TTS engine that is free and you can do things like pause and continue. There are other options that have higher-quality voices, but they aren't free.
- kvn8888 2y ago
  I use the wavenet extension and use my 1M character free quota from Google cloud

Jaxan 2y ago

Both windows and macos (the operating systems) have this built-in under accessibility. It’s worth a try and I use it sometimes when I want to read something while cooking.

beAbU 2y ago

Good old Microsoft Sam? It'll sound like Stephen Hawking is reading it to you!

m463 2y ago

firefox does this directly. Reader mode has a headphones symbol to read webpage text.