TURN TEXT INTO VOICE

ReadTheWords is a free online service that will read any text you enter aloud. You can upload documents in the following formats: Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, text, website address, RSS feed. There are 15 different voices you can choose, and they can handle English, Spanish and French. They even pronounced my name properly (Siess=cease), but goofed on SLA (they said “slaw”). Supposedly it takes less than a minute to generate one hour’s reading. You can listen online, download an mp3 file, embed it in a website or blog, or turn it into a podcast. Unfortunately, there are no navigation keys for the visually impaired, but it’s very impressive.

You have to register, but it’s free.

Thanks to Stan Schroeder of mashable.com for highlighting this service.

URLs:
http://readthewords.com
Schroeder’s review: http://mashable.com/2008/03/18/readthewords-read-text-aloud/