TextOn

The evolution of technology reached new peaks with every few years. Default operating system features now make it possible to have text read out loud so you can focus on more important tasks. For instance, TextOn gives you the possibility to open existing documents, edit them, and have everything read to you.

One of the main advantages consists in the lack of an installer to take any of your time or effort. More than that, it can easily fit on any thumb drive so you always have a trustworthy editing tool regardless of the computer you’re working on, without worrying that registry entries get affected, because these are not modified in the process.

Most of the space is the text pad where you get to enlist all your thoughts and tasks. Sadly, there’s no additional help to know the number of words or characters written so far, line numbering for source code writing, or rulers to help align paragraphs and page layouts with ease. There’s not even an additional method of obtaining these details either.

On the other hand, you can easily process text documents under formats like TXT and RTF, as well as its own type, TOF. Although tab support is not implemented, there is the possibility to run multiple instances of the application to work around with different resources more efficiently. Import and export options both support the same file types.

Edit options are restrained to copy, cut, and paste, undo and redo, but no built-in search function to easily identify text strings. However, text edit options make it possible to change font type, style, attributes, and color, but no background, or page edit options.

Last but not least, the application comes with a built-in text to speech option. Even though you can't convert or export the audio layer, you can have all text read to you at the press of a button.

Bottom line is that there’s still a long way before TextOn makes it between the top competitors, even for editing plain, and rich text file formats. It doesn’t mean it’s not worth at least a try, compensating with portability, and opportunity to edit multiple documents at a time in different instances.