What is text to speech?

What is text to speech? To put it simply, it is using a computer to read a page out loud.

The better voices are carefully put together from samples taken out of recordings of real people. These people had been asked to talk through a series of phrases that are thought by rather clever researchers to be representative of the tones, inflections and sounds associated with a particular language and dialect.

Computer programs have been developed (and are being continuously improved) that read a portion of a document, book, or even a website, and string together the bits of synthesized voice that make sense for the words and phrases being read. The output of the computer program is put into a format that can be easily understood by audio players (such as the OXIL Media Player) and we can then enjoy the result.

OXIL is pleased to offer a suite of programs that make this process very easy for our clients. You produce your documents or compose your website pages in a natural feeling editor, and then our tools automatically produce the corresponding spoken version. As computers are not yet quite as adept at reading aloud as are real people, our tools can be used to tweak the occasional word or phrase where the computer could use a little bit of help.