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Add to SafariWhen comparing Natural Reader vs Speech Central, the Slant community recommends Natural Reader for most people. In the question“What is the best text to speech software for Mac and iOS?” Natural Reader is ranked 5th while Speech Central is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Natural Reader is:
Formats include: Microsoft Word, PDF, eBook (ePUb), text, and RTF files, webpages.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Reads many formats
Formats include: Microsoft Word, PDF, eBook (ePUb), text, and RTF files, webpages.
Pro Prices reflect arrogance
It could be a perfect suite of voices if macOS could in extension include them when working on alternative apps or browsing, etc. You could if you preferred go along for the Standard Offering but as set forth before, Natural Reader ought to include macOS users and with recognition other than imposing Google Chrome as the default.
Pro Simple but effective playback controls
You can click on a any sentence and the voice will jump to wherever that sentence is and continue on from there. Forward and back button is for one sentence. Shortcuts are available as well for pause/read, forward/back by one sentence.
Pro File replication/syncing available via iCloud
Pro Available on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android
It's cross platform, but syncing only partially works for Apple ecosystem using iCloud.
Pro Good value for the money / Cheap
For $10 this app offers a lot.
Cons
Con No Safari Support
Great options although it could be more affordable. It is not as if most average consumer is financially strong enough to afford all? If prices were lower, their premium offers could sell like other very successful great ideas.
Con Free version available, but upgrades are costly
$69.50, $129.50, or $199.50, does not appear to be a lifetime purchase, there seems to be a limit on how many images that can be used with the OCR function within the different tiers.
Con Few hotkeys, not user configurable
The shortcuts/hotkeys that exist are simple and work well, but they are not user configurable which might be a problem for some. The app is more GUI driven, a travesty since accessibility is a big attraction for people seeking software like this.
Con Unstable on MacOS High Sierra
Encountered stability issues on MacOS High Sierra. Changing voices or opening a .docx Word document can cause crashes.
Con No voices included on Android version
The app is unusable on Android unless you have voices installed under text to speech output settings.
Con No playback position syncing, even via iCloud
Even though the files replicate across Mac OS and iOS devices, the playback position does not replicate.across iCloud. Each device remembers it's own playback position, but it doesn't get synced to other devices.
Con Doesn't support images
If you have media you want to read where images or illustrations are important, this is not going to cut it.
