@Voice Aloud Reader
Free Android App - Now with PDF support!
Current version number: 10.12.08
@Voice Aloud Reader reads aloud the text displayed in an Android app, e.g. web pages, news articles, long emails, sms, PDF files and more.
IMPORTANT: You need Text-To-Speech engine and voices installed on your device to use this app. If you don't have it yet, pickup from Play Store Acapela, Ivona or SVOX TTS package. You may use more than one if you want.
Downloads and Manual:
* Click "Share", "Send by Email" button or menu item in any app to send text
you read to @Voice Aloud Reader for aloud reading over speakers or headset.
* If "Share" is not available, copy text in other apps and paste it into @Voice
for aloud reading.
* Open text, PDF, DOC, EPUB/MOBI/FB2 or HTML files from Android file system for reading aloud.
* Save articles opened in @Voice to files for later listening. Construct
listening lists of many articles for uninterrupted listening one after the
other. Order the list as needed, e.g. more important articles first.
* Record spoken articles to sound files - WAV
(uncompressed) or OGG (compressed) formats supported.
* Easily add saved Pocket articles to @Voice reading list - in Read List screen,
press Menu - Add articles from Pocket.
* Easily control speech generator volume, pitch and rate of speech.
* Pause/resume speech as needed with wired or Bluetooth headset buttons, plus
click Next/Previous buttons to jump by sentence, long-click to switch to the
next/previous article on a list.
* Can automatically recognize the language of an article and use appropriate TTS
voice, if available, or set your preferred voices manually with "Select
language" menu item.
* Options for additional pause between paragraph, start talking as soon as a new
article is loaded or wait for a button press, start/stop talking when wired
headset plug is inserted/removed.
* Optional sleep timer to stop speech after a given timeout.
ABOUT PERMISSIONS:
The full Internet access is needed because the “Share” function from web
browsers and any news reading apps I tried, sends us only the URL address
(http://something...). They do not send the full text of articles, so @Voice has
to download the article from the Internet to be able to read it aloud or save
for later reading. Only by using Copy text function in one app, and pasting it
in @Voice, or by saving the full text in one app to storage and opening a file
in @Voice, you could avoid Internet connection, but this is not very convenient.
PLEASE send me your suggestions for improvements and bug reports welcome - send them to the email address listed on "Contact" page. Thanks and have fun! And a BIG THANK YOU! to Ilia Prokator for sending me the idea for this app.
Greg at Hyperionics
@Voice Aloud Reader is reviewed on Appliv!
v. 4.7.4, 2014-03-17
* Performance improvements and bug fixes
v. 4.7.3, 2014-03-15
* New on Read List menu: "Delete articles not on lists."
v. 4.7.1, 2014-03-14
* New "Page Look" options on the menu - Day and Night themes, keep
original page colors or set custom color.
* New option under "Page Look" menu - Preserve styles, e.g. font shape & sizes
etc.
* Correctly shows tables
* Reload from browser option will now save selected options and saved passwords
for a give web site.
* More custom filters for specific sites (Orthobullets.com Orthopaedic Review
site, Hacker News), more custom filters in the future.
v. 4.6.0, 2014-03-04
* Fixing a problem with opening attachments from Gmail or similar
situations
* Fixing an occasional crash when trying to open a PDF file.
v. 4.4.3, 2014-01-28
* Now will open or add to list also PDF files from http links, and
better format TXT files from such links.
* Fixes for Share - Add to list sometimes not working as expected.
v. 4.4.2
* Using Share/Add to @Voice List will no longer interrupt reading of
current article
* Fixed highlight and voice getting out of sync sometimes
v. 4.4.1, 2014-01-28
* Using Share/Add to @Voice List will no longer interrupt reading of
current article
* Fixed highlight and voice getting out of sync sometimes
v. 4.4.0, 2014-01-24
* New settings, under "Text, Icons and Reading List" section: "For
plane text, separate lines by default" and "For HTML, load full content by
default".
* The same settings can be switched for individual articles or files under menu
- "Reload or clear...". Change the options there if you don't like the way a
plane text or HTML article is displayed.
* Bluetooth device feature is now optional, which will make the app available to
about 500 more devices on Google Play.
v. 4.3.1, 2014-01-16
* It is now possible to reload an article from a web browser, for
entering passwords etc. See menu - "Reload or clear" - "Load from browser"
* Fix crash on Android 2.x when pasting text.
v. 4.2.0, 2014-01-14
* Option to treat new-line characters as new paragraphs, when pasting
text
* Fix for an occasional trouble when switching TTS voices
v. 4.1.7
* Fix: sentence highlighting would stop if screen turned off, then on
again while the program is talking.
v. 4.1.6 Fixes:
* Small change to let FBReader TTS+ Plugin to use speech replacement
created in @Voice, or import them from TTS+ to @Voice (under Settings menu)
Version 4.1 - 2013.12.23
* Swipe gesters to show-hide control panel at the bottom,
reading list etc.
* Multiple reading lists
Version 4.0 - 2013-11.12
* Added "Edit speech" feature under Settings menu, to
change pronunciation of some words, delete unwanted fragments of sentences
(using RegEx) and more.
* Added "Clear contents" function to the menu, to clear the current text from
@Voice screen.
* If HTML page declares text encoding different from auto-detected, we let you
switch between the two from the menu, to display text correctly.
* Made the APK file to download smaller.
* Many smaller new features, improvements and bug fixes.
Version 3.4.0 - 2013-10.18
* Added "fast scroll" feature - a blue circular button on
right, that appears if you touch screen and move it up or down, then fades out
if not needed. Touch and slide up/down to scroll fast to any part of the
document.
* Fixed issue with PDF files sometimes losing position (bookmark)
* PDF files can be now added to reading list.
* Fixed issue with Dropbox leaving incomplete (damaged) files if connection was
broken while downloading.
Version 3.3.2 - 2013-10.12
* Showing progress bars under article titles in the
Reading List, to show how much was read.
* Fixing bug in extracting text from big PDF files
* Layout improvement for high resolution screens
* Bug fixes and performance improvements.
Version 3.2.3 - 2013.09.28
* Improved search interface, e.g. ending search with
"Play" button starts playing from the currently found place.
* Better - sharper and flat - buttons in the bottom row
Version 3.2.1 - 2013.09.26
* Added Search function to the top bar of @Voice
* On Android 2.x implemented the same "Action Bar" and menu as on Android 4.x
* Bug fixes and performance improvements
Version 3.1.0 - 2013.09.24
* Sending PDF files from Adobe Reader through "Share"
function to @Voice now works.
* Pressing "Next" sentence when at the end, or "Previous" when at start, now
loads a next or previous article from the list, or provides spoken feedback.
Version 3.0.7 - 2013.09.17
* Fixed a mixup of Russian texts appearing in Bulgarian
translation
* Fixed a possible "null pointer" crash
Version 3.0.6 - 2013.09.16
* Fixed opening password-protected PDF files from Dropbox
app, file explorers etc.
* Better multitasking, sometimes was blocking on article loading.
Version 3.0.3 - 2013.09.11
* Fixed: could not open files from Dropbox app.
Version 3.0.2 - 2013.09.10
* Made possible opening PDF files by a press in Android
"Download" area and similar situations.
* Several bug fixes.
Version 3.0.0 - 2013.09.05
* Now extracts text from PDF files for reading aloud or
on screen. Select "Open" from menu and navigate to folder with any PDF files.
* Stability and speed improvements. Version 2.8.9.1 - 2013.08.21
Version 2.8.9 - 2013.08.10
Version 2.8 - 2013.08.01
Version 2.7 - 2013.07.01
* Loads very long text files in segments to avoid running
out of memory
* Fixes for some encoding errors
* Long press now also highlights the sentence to start speed from that point, in
addition to starting text selection. This makes possible selecting a sentence to
start reading from when TalkBack is enabled.
* Performance improvements, including armeabi-v7a native code
* Several bug fixes
Version 2.6.1 - 2013.06.21
* Correcting problem with listing all voices (countries
and speaker names were not displayed)
* Added character encoding recognition when loading text files. Should now
display correct characters even if text is not in UTF-8 format.
Version 2.5.0 - 2013.06.12
* Added "night" reading mode to the menu
* Many bug fixes and performance improvements.
Version 2.3.8 - 2013.05.28
* Several bug fixes and performance improvements
Version 2.3.4 - 2013.05.23
* For Android 4 (ICS) and higher, added a better lookup
of TTS engines, languages and voices.
* Many bug fixes and performance improvements
Version 2.2.3 - 2013
* Added option to read aloud at once text copied to
clipboard
* Redesigned Settings for more streamlined use
* Added notification to Android notification bar, with the title of currently
played article. On Android v.3 and higher it also has progress bar, buttons to
start/stop, skip sentences and turn on/off the option to speak clipboard aloud.
* Asking how to handle Stop button on its first use
Version 2.1.0 - 2013.04.27
* Dropbox login was broken if new Dropbox app installed. This release fixes the problem.
Version 2.0.9 - 201.04.22
* Bug fixes and performance improvements.
Version 2.0.7 - 2013.03.29
* More crashes and no-reponses fixed. Thank you for sending the bug reports!
Version 2.0.5 - 2013.03.27
* Several bug fixes again.
Version 2.0.3 - 2013.03.24
* Fixed crash when pressing Help button on some devices
* Fixed English pronunciation of words ending with ST and a dot.
* Paste button or menu item now appears even if you copy text as short as 1
character.
* Auto-start speech when headset connection option now also works when Bluetooth
headset is connected.
* Fixed an issue with reader not always remembering the text position after
return form another screen
* Fixed occasional crash in Dropbox sync
* Zoom controls added to enlarge text as needed. Can be
disabled under Settings.
* Now remembers the scroll position for each article
* Many bug fixes and performance improvements
* Bookmarks improved - now remembers exact position for all saved articles read, plus remembers how to load the contents (all or "essential")
* Auto-bookmarks the last read article, and restores it and the last read sentence when the app is stopped and re-started later. This also synchronizes through Dropbox, if you use this feature.
* Corrected a problem with ads sometimes showing even after buying and installing the "@Voice No Ads Upgrade". Sorry about that!
* Fixed another crash
* Fixed a rare crash on Android v.3 and higher
* Added French translation
* Added German translation
* Bug fixes and performance improvements
* Added Russian translation
* Small bug fixes.
* Option to move @Voice folder to another location, e.g.
external SD card, if needed.
* Dropbox sync now has option to be on demand (when you click the menu to sync
only) or continuous.
* Option to not exit the app when the on-screen STOP button is pressed, just
stop speech and reset position to the top of article.
* Faster start with slow data connection
* Auto-add to list articles added to our folder from outside @Voice app, e.g.
saved to Dropbox from desktop browser
* Added Polish translation
* Dropbox sync! Enable, then build your list on one device, e.g. a tablet, then listen on your phone. Or from your computer, use File/Save As - "HTML only" function in the browser, save to @Voice Dropbox folder, then listen on your phone.
* Several bug fixes, including a crash on some long articles from RADIO SVOBODA.
* Improved contents extraction from Twitter tweets.
* Updated video tutorials in Help
* Modified to prevent speech stopping on empty paragraphs with some speech engines (e.g. Loquendo)
* Android package name changed to com.hyperionics.avar -
will uninstall the older version upon first run, but preserve any saved articles
and reading lists.
* Performance improvements and bug fixes
* Ready for an optional purchase of No Ads Upgrade from Google Play Store
* Corrected issue with voice change when starting to read the next article from list.
* Better contents extraction, loads the main article only
and omits navigation etc. from Web pages.
* Optional menu to load the full contents of page, if necessary.
* Optional "share" icon to just add an article to list. Choose icons to show in
Settings.
* Added move and delete selected files buttons to reading list "add files"
panel.
* Swipe left/right to load next/prev article from list.
* Billing permission added for future premium/no-ads edition.
* Bug fixes and performance improvements.
Double click of headset next/previous buttons to advance articles from list did not work well, changed to LONG-PRESS (about 1 sec.) - much better.
Sound divider between articles from the list, speaks article number and total of articles.
Option to auto-add saved articles to reading list, on by default.
Fixed Open -> HTML file saved from any browser, now opens it in correct format for reading aloud.
Reading lists for uninterrupted listening of many previously saved articles
Headset Previous/Next button double-click jumps to the previous/next article on a list
Ability to select TTS voices by language, country and speaker name, e.g. "English (US, Heather)"
Many other improvements and bug fixes
Added paste, save and open commands
First non-beta release
Again faster text processing for speech
Downloading and processing progress bar was sometimes missing.
Much faster text loading and processing
Fixed speech stopping upon rotating phone or lock/unlock
More bug fixes.
Performance improvements and bug fixes
Language recognition is now very fast, made auto-select language the default selection.
Bug fixes and speed improvements.
Faster startup with auto-select language option enabled.
Many more bug fixes and smaller improvements.
Please email us your comments! Also don't forget to click the banner ad to send us a few cents as a reward for our hard work :)
Added automatic language recognition option, but it causes app to start slowly, so it's off by default.
Many more improvements and fixes, see yourself!
Now works on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and higher
You may use "Send by Email" button/menu in many news reading apps to get the text to @Voice
Some HTML style is used in reader window, e.g. headers are bigger, if text was downloaded from a web page.
Many smaller improvements and bug fixes.
Bug fixes, of course...
Cosmetic changes - removed title bar for more reading space, fixed "rate" link on "About" dialog.
Initial beta-test release. Please download and help us test and improve this app!