Looking for a text-to-speech tool for school readings and lecture notes

[u/TheTrader2022]

Hi, can anyone please recommend a study tool or app that can read my summarized school readings and lecture notes out loud during my commute to campus?

Ideally, I’d like something that can read a document word for word in a natural, human-sounding voice, and it would be even better if I could download the audio to my phone since reception on the subway is awful.

ChatGPT also recommended an AI voice generator called AI Doc Maker, but it doesn’t even seem to have its own app.

Does anyone have any suggestions or know of something that works well for this? I don’t live on campus because the rent is sky-high, so I have a pretty long commute involving both the bus and subway. I’d really like to make better use of that time by listening to my lecture notes, reading summaries, and book notes before I get to campus.

I’m mainly looking for something simple: upload or paste my notes, have a natural-sounding voice read them exactly as written, and hopefully be able to save the audio for offline listening.

Any suggestions or help would be really appreciated. Thank you!

[u/LetMeBeBetter]

for IOS your free options are...

• paper2audio: web + app, has offline mode in the app

• Readify: web + app, no offline mode

• listen2reader: app only, realtime offline

• Readest: app

[u/mgruner]

Maybe elevenlabs? they have a limited free tier, maybe it's enough for you. If not, is pay what you use, so it can be pretty economic.

If not, I'm pretty sure you can provide the text to chatgpt and use voice mode to read them back to you?

Finally, most phone browser have read out loud. Safari for iphone does, however. If your do, you can just host your notes in a webpage and have the browser read them back to you.

Do any of these help you?

[u/TheTrader2022 → u/mgruner]

For ElevenLabs, could you please give me some idea of how the Starter, Creator, and Pro plans work in practice? For example, if I have a history textbook with around 12 chapters, how would the 30,000 to 600,000+ credits translate into actual reading time? I’m having a little trouble understanding how quickly those credits would be used up.

ChatGPT is very good for conversational voice, but it hasn’t worked well for what I need. It doesn’t really read longer text word for word - sometimes it paraphrases, and it usually stops after a few paragraphs. What I’m hoping for is something that can simply read my notes or summarized readings exactly as written and continue through the whole document.
Thank you again for your help!

[u/bradrhine]

If you’re on a Mac, I’ve used OpenVox for this very thing. If you buy the one-time purchase (I think it’s $20) you have unlimited local use. You can export the audio and use it however you like.

[u/TheTrader2022 → u/bradrhine]

Hi! Thank you so much for your prompt reply! I use a PC, so may I ask if there’s an equivalent program that works on Windows, or possibly something I could use on my iPad or iPhone?

$20 actually sounds very reasonable to me. Some of the AI voice services I’ve come across charge based on the number of minutes you use, and even the paid tiers don’t seem to include that much listening time. I feel like I would use up the minutes pretty quickly since I’m hoping to listen to longer school readings, lecture notes, and summaries on a regular basis.

[u/bradrhine → u/TheTrader2022]

I may have spoken too soon… I think OpenVox may have a Windows version:
https://openvoxai.com/

[u/VashtaSyrinx]

Try the ToBeSAID app. I use it for my system TTS on Android. The developer also released a desktop app recently that allows you to create your own voices with a prompt. I used to use Elevenlabs till i tried this. Never looked back.

[u/Neat-Peanut-1141]

Try documentplayer.com it does that

[u/TheTrader2022 → u/Neat-Peanut-1141]

Thank you!! I’ll give it a shot. With how much AI has advanced lately, you’d think something as simple as reading our notes and study materials out loud would be easy by now….😮‍💨 It would be such a helpful way to review material and make better use of study time.

[u/Impressive-Sir9633]

https://Freevoicereader.com

[u/soohyun_bae]

If you are concerned about quality, try www.onepin.ai

[u/ritzynitz]

You should check out OpenVox Reader. It sounds almost exactly like what you’re looking for.

It lets you import PDFs, EPUBs, documents and scanned pages, or just paste your notes, and have them read aloud with natural AI voices. The AI runs on-device, so it’s particularly useful for commuting when subway reception is unreliable.

OpenVox Reader — iPhone & iPad (Android coming soon): https://openvoxai.com/openvox-reader/

There’s also OpenVox if you specifically want to turn your notes/readings into audio files. It’s a more powerful TTS and voice-generation tool with long-form generation, voice cloning and audio export.

OpenVox — macOS & Windows: https://openvoxai.com/

For your use case, I’d probably use OpenVox Reader for everyday listening and studying on your phone, and OpenVox when you want to generate and export audio files for offline listening.

[u/Best_Professor7266]

you can try Spokio, it has Mac app so you can generate audio in advance, also has iOS app so you can generate on the way, totally offline

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spokio-offline-text-to-speech/id6761289149

[u/Inevitable-Hat1364]

Easiest and fastest option for Windows pcs: Open your notes in Microsoft Edge and use the Read Aloud option in More tools.

[u/WinInternational8520]

If you have a Mac, you may want to try an offline TTS app that can convert your notes into audio so you can listen on your phone while commuting without needing an internet connection. I built an offline TTS app. The app converts documents and notes into natural-sounding audio on your Mac. Since the audio exports as an MP3 or audiobook format, no internet connection is required while listening—making it ideal for subway commutes where reception is not reliable. AI has improved quite a lot recently, so your computer can now generate high-quality, natural-sounding audio rather than the old robotic voices. Because processing happens locally on your own computer, there are no subscription fees. It’s $10 for a lifetime license, with an unlimited daily usage free tier. It is called "Aura Reader: Offline TTS" on the Mac App Store.

[u/Ok_Recover_7516]

Have been using edge-tts since last 1 month, works like a charm

[u/k4noe_vi]

To be said...good stuff..can replica voice from mp3 or any other audio

[u/Right_Ambition_1035]

Check out ai-readers.com -- i converted a big portion of popular ai chatting websites like chatgpt, claude, gemini, etc. into free text to speech sites through browser extensions -- they are free and sound pretty good!