Speak Out

Text to speech has evolved in an impressive manner over the years, and Windows introduced this concept quite a while ago in its default set of features. Nowadays, there are various specialized applications which help you transform text into speech, and a suitable example in this regard is Speak Out.

A cool thing about it is that it can be launched from the moment download is done, without having to go through the steps of an installer. More than this, it makes it possible to have it deployed on a USB flash drive in case you need to use it on other computers. Registry entries are not modified during runtime, so the health status of the target PC is not altered.

The main window might not be much to look at, but it doesn’t mean it makes it any difficult to use. There’s a large text area in which you either paste or write the source text, while the trigger button needs to be pressed in order to have the application speak out the input. Everything is wrapped around a classic window frame, with a cool texture to give it a personal feel.

Unfortunately, input needs to be manually performed either through writing a text phrase, or pasting from clipboard, because it’s not possible to load an existing file, not even if it’s under the TXT format. However, there’s little to no limitation when it comes to input, in the sense that text can be quite lengthy.

Speech is delivered at the press of a button. The application only relies on a default speech configuration, without any elements to customize voice settings, which leaves much to be desired. On the downside, there’s no possibility to have an audio file generated based on text input.

Bottom line is that text to speech is quite a comfortable computer feature. However, Speak Out doesn’t really deliver the expected set of features. Sure enough, it provides a pretty straightforward, and easy method of input, but it could have used some voice customization options, or option to save an audio file.