GhostReader: The premier Text-to-Speech solution for the Mac

GhostReader™ allows you to listen while your Mac does the talking in your language of choice

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The voices are extraordinary, so life-like that one can imagine what the speaker looks like. The program is a terrific value and is truly in a class by itself.
Reprinted with permission from The Kleper Report on Digital Publishing, copyright 2007, Graphic Dimensions, Lauderdale by the Sea, FL.

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Available voices - Video - Reviews

Save time

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• Convert documents to audiobooks to listen to on an iPod or iPhone.
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• Convert text from news sites and emails to audiobooks to listen to on an iPod or iPhone. Read more...

Overcome reading difficulties

• Listen to selected text in any application with word or sentence highlighting.
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• Point the cursor at text in Safari, TextEdit, Mail or Pages 2008 to hear the paragraph below the cursor. Read more...

Proofread

• Listen to your own text to proof spelling and composition. Read more...

Improve pronunciation of foreign languages

• Listen to text on foreign web sites in an interactive reader window.
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• Type foreign text in a new reader window to hear the pronunciation. Read more...

Create podcasts

• Create personal podcasts by converting your text to audio files or iTunes tracks.

GhostReader in action:

Watch more videos...

Reviews

Version 1.1.1 received 5 out of 5 mice in SVM Mac issue 200, December 2007: "This software is impressive in terms of its pronunciation and the intelligence with which the phrases are spoken, respecting intonation and punctuation."

Version 1.1.1 in The Kleper Report on Digital Publishing Sep/Oct 2007: "Terrific value and truly in a class by itself".

Version 1.1 received a "good" in PC Professionell 7/2007: "GhostReader 1.1 is at present the best speech synthesis for Apple computers".

Version 1.0 got 4.5 out of 5 stars in Vous et Votre Mac no. 22 : "Easy to use and a great price" and a "Good" in

Version 1.0 received a "good" in Macwelt no. 04/2007: "Substantially enhances the quality of speech on the Mac".

Features

• Listen to Text, Word, HTML, PDF and RTF documents (plus in Leopard: DOCX and ODT documents)
• Create personal and educational podcasts by converting text to audio files
• Convert text to iTunes tracks with the encoding of your choice: AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless
• Create your own bookmarkable audiobooks by exporting to iTunes tracks
• Speak selected text in any application using the GhostReader tool palette or a keyboard shortcut
• Simply point your cursor at text in Safari, Pages 2008, TextEdit, or Mail and listen to the paragraph below the cursor instead of reading
• Use the included pronunciation editor to modify the way a word is pronounced or to add new abbreviations
• Includes high quality voices in a language of choice
• Universal Binary (PPC and Intel) requiring Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 or later (fully Leopard compatible)
• Localized in English, French, Italian and German

Available voices

GhostReader includes naturally sounding voices in a language of choice. Available languages include American English, Arabic, British English, Czech, Finnish, French, Canadian French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, American Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish and Swedish. GhostReader itself is localized in English, French, Italian and German.

Need system-wide voices?

The ConvenienceWare voices only work in the ConvenienceWare applications which have been licensed to use those voices. If you need system-wide voices that can be used in any Mac speech using application including TextEdit, Preview, VoiceOver and, of course, GhostReader you should take a look at Infovox iVox.

Why buy GhostReader if Mac OS X includes free text-to-speech?

Sure there are text-to-speech functions built into Mac OS X, but they do not do everything GhostReader does, do some things in less practical ways, and, unless you buy third-party voices, won't speak any other language than American English. Just try letting Preview read a PDF to you and you will find that you need to go into a hierarchical menu to start and stop reading. Try letting the reading start in the middle of the page: impossible. Try to convert the PDF to an iTunes track: impossible. Now open the same PDF with GhostReader. It will extract the text and will let you put the insertion point anywhere you like so that you can listen from that point forward. You can fast-forward, rewind, skip paragraphs, export as audio to iTunes. Now, which is more practical to listen to PDFs, Preview or GhostReader.

Now turn on "speak text below the cursor" in the GhostReader preferences and set it so that it will only speak when the option key is held down. Now hold your option key down any time you want to listen to the paragraph below the cursor in Safari or Mail. Alternatively, select any text and press the speak selection button. Compare these ways of reading text with that of the Mac OS X function that will speak selected text with a hotkey. Which is easier?

People talk a lot about VoiceOver. VoiceOver is great solution and provides excellent access for blind users, but would you use it just to have it read some text to you occasionally? It is not designed for that purpose, requires lots of keyboard commands, speaks all the time...