Amazing Text-to-Speech App Reads Articles, Books, and More Out Loud

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

A free and useful new app lets you listen to just about any article, text or document on your phone.

It’s called ElevenLabs Reader AI Audio. It converts written text into natural-sounding speech using realistic-sounding AI voices. You can type or paste text into the app, upload files like a PDF or eBook, or paste in a link to an article, and the app will read the content aloud in a voice of your choice.

The App is free, and the text-to-speech voices sound great, but right now, it is iOS only.

If you want something similar on Android, there’s an app called Speechify. They have a free level of service, but if you want the best voices, you have to pay a monthly or yearly subscription fee.

There’s another app called Natural Reader for iOS and Android, which is similar and also has free and paid plans.

Your best bet for something free, easy, and simple on Android is called Reading mode from Google. This is really an accessibility feature, but it converts anything on your screen into audio in seconds, and the voice is decent.

If you want to build a reading list of articles that can be read out loud to you in a playlist, you could also use Pocket, which works for free on iOS and Android. The downside is that there is only one reading voice, and it’s not the highest quality.