Do you want to make content more inclusive to assist people with visual impairment? We’ve got the perfect recommendation for you!
Today, over 1 billion people worldwide encounter barriers when trying to read and understand content online. Some of those people are the ones with visual impairment.
If your content is inclusive, you´ll not only help them but it’ll also help your content reach more people.
Now, how can you make your content more inclusive? The perfect tool to do that is text to speech. Whether it is to study, work, rest your eyes or assist someone with a visual impairment, turning any text into audio is helpful.
What’s text to speech?
Text-to-speech (TTs) is a popular assistive technology in which a computer or tablet reads the words on the screen out loud to a person (it’s sometimes called “read aloud” technology).
TTS works on almost all personal digital devices, including computers, smartphones, and tablets. All types of text files can be transcripted and read aloud, including Word documents, PDF files, and web pages. Some TTS software tools also have a technology called optical character recognition (OCR); this technology allows the AI to read text present in images.
Converting text to audio allows easy access to digital content for those with visual impairment, caters to more audiences with language proficiency issues, to the growing aging population, and permits more flexibility for the content owner.
If you’re trying to find the perfect converter to assist people with visual impairment and make content easier to access you should try Woord.
Why Woord?
Woord is a free online TTS that has a number of useful features. It is available in over 50 languages, including several English dialects, Portuguese dialects, and Spanish dialects. You can also select a male, female, or gender-neutral voice. All of these features are available for free, allowing you to test the service before investing in the premium version.
The free edition includes premium voices, a Chrome plugin, an SSML editor, an MP3 download, and up to 20,000 characters per month. You can also change the speed and format of the voice with this software.
Woord‘s vocal characteristics allow you to use it in a variety of situations. You can use Woord‘s Text-to-Speech (TTS) functionality to create applications that assist people with reading difficulties, such as those used in E-learning and education.
Woord, as previously mentioned, can be used to assist the blind and visually impaired in consuming digital information such as eBooks and newspapers, but it can also be used in a variety of devices such as set-top boxes, smartwatches, tablets, and smartphones.
How to use it?
Woord ‘s interface is designed in a simple way to be intuitive for the user. With these simple steps you will be able to generate quality audio:
– In the format you prefer, write or upload the content you want to convert to speech (it can be an image, PDF, text file, blog, or a variety of other formats).
– Select the language, voice gender (male or female), and pace. (From within the PDF, you can also choose where to begin playing.)
– You can listen to or download your audio recording as an MP3 file online.
Also published on Medium.