Make PDFs speak

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Make PDFs speak

Get your computer to read you

Read Out Loud is a Text-to-Speech tool built into Adobe Reader 6.0 and higher. The Text-to-Speech engine is installed as part of the operating system.

Your computer has a default voice. It might be possible to select a different voice by clearing the ‘Voice’ check box. This reveals the list of possible ‘Voices’. Choose a different voice by using the Up arrow or Down arrow key.

To begin, a little background.

The Portable Document Format (PDF) was developed by Adobe, one of the pioneer companies of the personal computer business. The PDF has become the standard for electronic document distribution.

A PDF file embeds the fonts, graphics and images in the file so the document should always look exactly like the original, regardless of the platform used to display it. With the web, the viewing computer and the browser both contribute to the way you view a document. With a PDF you see what the designer intended because the file is self-contained.

Adobe made the early decision to make their reader freely available, which is perhaps why it is so widely used. The other reason that computer users have standardised around the PDF is because documents produced in one computer environment can be read in another. So a document produced on a Mac can be read on a PC.

For the first twenty years of desktop computing, transferring files from one environment to another was almost impossible, so the PDF was very welcome. These days, lawyers like the format because the documents cannot be edited. The free PDF-reader does not allow you to create or edit PDF files.

To edit a PDF you will need to buy one of the graphics packages marketed by the Adobe Corporation. However, there are a few affordable packages which allow you to convert documents into PDF files.

The later versions of the PDF reader (version 6+) have added the ‘Read Out Loud’ feature. This does exactly what it says. Select this feature on the menu and the document will be read to you in a computer generated voice. It is not ideal, but thoroughly workable.

What a shame that you cannot embed different voices, just as the designer can employ different fonts. I have asked Adobe if this can be done, or is planned in the futures. But as invariably happens with large corporations, they don’t reply to emails or return phone calls.

So for the moment you are stuck with the voice of your operating system. You can buy other voice-files and replace the one you have installed if you find the computer voice unworkable. Watch, or rather listen, to this space. Computers that talk to you are on the way.

How to make it work

Read Out Loud is similar to "screen reader" technology designed for the visually handicapped, which has speech recognition to allow the user to navigate their computer and documents.

The following chart shows the keyboard shortcuts for accessing Read Out Loud:
Windows	Mac OS
From the View menu: 1 Choose Alt + V for View, then A for Read Out Loud, and then O for Read this page only. 2 Choose Alt + V for View, then A for Read Out Loud, and then E for Read to end of document. 3 Choose Alt + V for View, then A for Read Out Loud, and then P to Pause reading. Note that if reading is paused, this command changes to Resume reading. Press the letter R to Resume reading. 4 Choose Alt + V for View, then A for Read Out Loud, and then S to Stop reading.	From the View menu: 1 Choose View > Read Out Loud > Read this page 2 Choose View > Read Out Loud > Read to end document. 3 Choose View > Read Out Loud > Pause reading. that if reading is paused, this command changes Resume reading. 4 Choose View > Read Out Loud > Stop to stop
Keyboard commands are: 1 Ctrl + Shift + V to Read this page only. 2 Ctrl + Shift + B to Read to end of document. 3 Ctrl + Shift + C to Pause or Resume reading. 4 Ctrl + Shift + E to Stop reading.	Keyboard commands are: 1 Command + Shift + V to Read this page only. 2 Command + Shift + B to Read to end of document. 3 Command + Shift + C to Pause or Resume reading. 4 Command + Shift + E to Stop reading.