eSpeak

eSpeak is an open-source text-to-speech synthesizer that has been developed by Microsoft, in order to test the SAPI5 voices.

The interface of the application is a bit outdated, resembling the classical design used in Windows ’98 or ’95. Aside from this, the UI is actually very easy to use, thus enabling any type of individual to work with it, no matter their previous experience with computers. The main window displays several shortcut buttons that grant you easy access to all the actions available.

The tool actually supports multiple languages, such as English, Spanish, French and German.

It integrates multiple voices, which can be changed from the main window from “Microsoft Hazel Desktop – English (Great Britain)” to “Microsoft Zira Desktop – English (USA)”. Moreover, you have control over the speed and volume at which the voice reads your text. The tone of speech and specific effects can be modified by adding codes in the command line of the application. All of these can be found in a TXT file included in the installation folder.

eSpeak enables users to also read out loud TXT and XML documents. WAV files can be imported and exported from the utility, so that you can use certain texts at a later date.

Although eSpeak has an outdated interface, this piece of software proves to be useful by helping people read out loud bodies of text they input. The voice is subject to change in a lot of different manners, while import from TXT and XML files is possible, both of which make this tool efficient.