For those of us whose sights are trained on a computer screen all day long, reading in-depth articles on our favourite blogs or sifting through long emails is the last thing we want to do at the end of a day at the office. Imagine our delight then when we came across a program that promised to read all this text for us as we give our eyes a well-earned rest.

The beauty of TextAloud is that it not only reads out anything you copy and paste into the voice window but also allows you to save the resulting speech as an audio file. Effectively this means you can transform any web page, email or text document into a podcast to download to your MP3 player and listen to at your leisure. File sizes are kept to a minimum so it's possible to save entire novels as an audio file of less than 1Mb.

Having tried similar text-to-voice applications before, we were sceptical about how monotone the speech would sound. Sure enough, the one preset voice in the free download sounds like the boring brother of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and before too long you want to rip your earphones out to escape his ceaseless drone. Although you can change the pitch and speed of the voice, this proves no less robotic.

Before we reached for our reading glasses again we thought we'd try an upgrade to the full version of TextAloud, which incorporates the use of AT&T's Natural Voice technology as an alternative to the free Microsoft voice tones. With a wide range of different voices to choose from including, UK English, Indian English, and Spanish, the speech is seamless and almost as convincing as having someone sitting next to you. We particularly enjoyed being able to download a 150-page book from the net then sitting on the train listening to the dulcet tones of a softly-spoken English lady recite the tale to us.

The novelty of a text-to speech system is initially amusing but the voice in the freeware version soon becomes irritating. However, paying for the upgrade to more natural voices turns the application into a genuinely useful piece of kit that frees your eyes from the shackles of your computer screen.

Download TextAloud 2.274 in Softonic

Sometimes it's nice to hear your e-mails or written projects read back to you to see how it sounds. If you can't afford a personal secretary, then the next best thing is TTSReader which is is a fully-featured, text-to speech software package that allows you to read text aloud as well as save them to WAV or MP3 files.

TTSReader has a very simple interface which consists of a text box where you can type or paste text. As it reads, it highlights text with a blue cursor square. If you want to save the reading for listening on an external device or share with someone else, you can save the file to WAV or MP3 format. MP3 is recommended as it's much smaller and features more options for adjusting the volume.

If you only want TTS to read certain paragraphs, you can instruct it to skip sentences and paragraphs while reading. You can also saved read segments to a clipboard so you can go back to it later. If you get bored of the several voices included in the program - for which you can alter the pitch, volume and speed - you can download more from the developer website. Even if you don't use this for serious purposes, you'll have a lot of fun just hearing your computer swear.

Download TTSReader 1.00 in Softonic

NewsAloud personal news agent from NextUp.com finds the stories you want, then reads them aloud in a natural, human sounding voice. In this age of information overload, do you find yourself buried just from trying to keep up with the latest news? How about a solution that uses the unique power of the Internet to deliver personalized content to your desktop, or even better, to your portable device?

Stop plowing through email or spending hours surfing the net for the news that interests you. Instead let NewsAloud do it so you can listen while you work on something else, or get your news to go and listen while you excercise, commute, or get outside for a change.

NewsAloud is easy to set up and get started with right away. Select the categories for news you want and choose how you want to be notified when new stories are found. Select from several available voices to create your own personal information broadcast.

Download NewsAloud 1.30 in Softonic

Converts any text into spoken words or MP3/WAVE audio files! 2nd Speech Center is an award-winning text-to-speech player that lets you listen to documents, e-mails or web pages instead of reading on screen. In addition to text, 2nd Speech Center also allows you to convert text to MP3 or WAVE files for listening later with your portable MP3 player.

2nd Speech Center can directly open Plain Text files (TXT), Microsoft Word files (DOC), PDF files (PDF), EMail files (EML), Rich Text files (RTF), HTML files. For Microsoft Internet Explorer users, 2nd Speech Center supplies a handy toolbar plug-in for Internet Explorer. 2nd Speech Center supports dozens of male, female and robotic voices for over 11 languages. 2nd Speech Center can monitor the Windows Clipboard and automatically process its contents. This feature makes it easy to read web pages, e-mail messages, documents and much more.

Additionally, 2nd Speech Center is integrated with many useful and timesaving features, such as talking alarm clock, talking reminder and powerful command lines for advanced users. And don't worry, the intuitive VCR style user interface is very easy to use.

Download 2nd Speech Center 3.0 in Softonic

Speaker is a program that lets people with a speech impediment or those who would like to learn English, generate a voice to say whatever they want. Using the text box, you can type your message and hit the talk button or use any of the pre-defined command to quickly say common phrases.

Download Speaker 2.3.1 in Softonic

ReadPlease 2003 (Free Edition) offers full support for all Microsoft voices, reads text via Windows clipboard from any program and has adjustable voice speed (rate). It also features:

• Microsoft voices: Mike, Mary, Sam
• Customize font and background colour
• Reads text via Windows clipboard from any program (copy/paste)
• Control reading from system tray
• Reads e-mail emoticons such as :) or :(
• Adjustable voice speed (rate)
• Low vision colour option
• ReadPlease Enable your website

Download ReadPlease Free 2003 in Softonic

Agent Reader is an Advanced Personal Assistant with Text-to-Speech, Macro Recorder, Ads/Pop-up Killer, and many useful functions not provided by Windows that increase your productivity in a significant way.

Agent Reader's text to speech reads everything copied to the clipboard from any application, the Macro Recorder automates repetitive typing tasks, the integrated ads/popup killer will close for you all the annoying windows while you browse and over 20 additional productivity utilities will make your computer experience much easier.

Download AgentReader 4.1 in Softonic