You may occasionally be in a situation where reading isn't the most convenient thing to do. Or, you might just not be able to read easily. There's plenty of content out there that's already in audio or video form, but if you want to consume an article or document you came across without actually reading it, you'll need to use something called text-to-speech conversion.

There are multiple tools that convert written text into spoken dialog, and they can be a very handy way of "reading" information when you don't have time to sit down and gaze attentively at your laptop screen. Many of these solutions are available for Windows 11 PCs (and earlier versions), so if you're in a situation where you want to listen to something instead of reading it, check out the following apps and services.

Natural Reader

The best, for a price

The top pick here has to go to Natural Reader, an online platform that offers an incredibly robust solution for text-to-speech conversion. Natural Reader has many facets, starting with a web interface that lets you paste text into a box or upload a document, PDF file, or even an image. Indeed, it has optical character recognition, so it can even read images for you. It's quite impressive.

Additionally, you can install it as a browser extension, making it easy to read any content you come across online. The extension lets you quickly read a page as it highlights the content it's reading, and it lets you click anywhere to skip a section. There's also a mobile app, if you want to use it on your phone.

The good and the bad of Natural Reader come from its voices. The app offers excellent voices to choose from, but most of them are only available in the Plus plan, and you're limited to 5 minutes a day if you don't want to pay $110 per year. There are also some less advanced Premium voices, which cost $60 per year, and you can use 20 minutes of those for free every day, but these are not as impressive. Unfortunately, beyond that, the only voices available are Microsoft's Zira, David, and Mark, which are very basic and limited to U.S. English. All other languages require you to pay up. The other downside is that the app is fully internet-based, so you can't use it without a connection.

If those limitations aren't a problem, or if you're willing to pay, Natural Reader is a terrific choice.

Microsoft Edge

Best reader for online content

Yes, Microsoft Edge is a web browser, so calling it a text-to-speech tool may seem disingenuous. But frankly, Edge offers one of the very best experiences you can get in this field. Microsoft's browser lets you read any webpage or PDF file you open in it, and it offers a wide selection of natural-sounding voices in multiple languages, making it a phenomenal solution for listening to written content. You can even combine it with Immersive Reader to get a more focused reading experience.

The only notable downside to Edge is that it works only with web content or PDF files, so if you run into text somewhere else, you have to paste it into a file and save it as a PDF. And, of course, most people use a browser other than Edge, so you'll probably have to change your default browser for this to be a very convenient solution. Still, if you're fine with that, it works wonders.

TTSMaker

Best free online TTS tool

Another great option for listening to written text is TTSMaker, which is another totally free solution that works on any browser. TTSMaker's strengths are in its voices, with a wide range of options to choose from. From what we could test, they all sound quite natural and less affected than the voices in a lot of other solutions out there. And, again, you can't beat the price.

TTSMaker also lets you export the audio conversion as an MP3 file, so if you want to listen to the audio later, you can, even if you don't have internet access at the moment.

The downsides are mostly in the character limit. Whenever you want to convert text, you're limited to a maximum of 10,000 characters on the default voice, or 8,000 for most other voices. You can always start a new session to overcome that, though, and there aren't any daily time limits, so you still have some breathing room.

The other downside is that, of course, you need an internet connection to access the website, and you don't get a browser extension or anything, so it's much more of a manual process. Still, that's the case for many of these tools, and this is a great one, all things considered.

Readme TTS

Best TTS browser extension

If you're seeking a more convenient solution for reading webpages out loud, the TTS

extension is a great, free solution that might just do the trick for you. As an extension, it lives on the menu bar in your browser, and you can click its button at any time to bring up the interface. Just press the Play button to start reading the current page. You can also paste text into the text box to read a specific bit of content, if you want.

One cool thing about this extension is that, in addition to the default Microsoft voices, it also has the option to use Google Translate voices for reading, so you get slightly more natural-sounding speech without having to pay up. And if you do want to pay for them, you can also use Google Cloud's API for text-to-speech conversion, which sounds even better.

TTS Text To Speech also has a nice, clean UI. And while it opens as an overlay on your current page, you can minimize to a small bar so that you're free to keep browsing while you listen to whatever is playing in the extension.

Office Immersive Reader

Best for Microsoft Office

If you're not on the web and you want to read documents out loud that you're working on in Microsoft Office, the built-in Immersive Reader in the Office apps is a good option. Immersive reader is available in apps like Word and OneNote, and in addition to making text larger and easier to read, it gives you a "Read aloud" option, so you can listen to that text instead.

Unlike the feature in Microsoft Edge, things are more limited in Office. You don't get the same natural-sounding voices, but they still sound better than the robotic voices that are still built into Windows, and you can adjust the reading speed to your liking. You do need to be connected to the internet to get these nicer voices, though. Otherwise, Office falls back to the voices built into Windows.

Regardless, this is a great solution that doesn't require you to install or pay for anything extra. You can access Immersive Reader in the Office from the View tab.

Panopreter

Simple offline reader

Say you don't want to use the internet at all, and you want to be able to read aloud any text you run across offline. That's where an app like Panopreter comes in. This is a simple text-to-speech tool that lets you paste text or open a variety of files, such as Word and PDF documents, to read out loud. Panopreter uses the voices installed on your PC, so you'll be limited to the built-in Windows voices that don't sound all that natural. Still, it's an effective way to read any text you want, and you can change the speed and pitch of the voice to your liking.

Panopreter also lets you import batches of files to read, and you can also export readings of text as audio files to listen to at any time. It's a fairly straightforward and simple app, but it does the job it sets out to do.

Balabolka

More powerful offline options

If you want a more powerful reader for offline use, Balabolka is an even better option than Panopreter. The Balabolka UI can definitely be overwhelming at first, but that's largely because its customization and granular features aren't always the easiest to use. You have options for customizing the font and color of text, choosing a secondary voice for reading foreign terms in the text, and much more. Balabolka also uses the languages installed on your system, so it might not be the best unless you've found some speech packs elsewhere. However, it does the job.

Similar to Panopreter, Balabolka lets you export audio conversions as audio files for easy listening at any time. It even supports batch conversions, so you can select multiple text files at once and turn them all into audio. It's certainly a capable app, although its abundance of features may not be optimal for everyone.

Final thoughts

These are all great options in their own right, although it's hard to deny that the best ones are those that rely on the internet. These have the best voices, which really promote a natural listening experience, and the web is where you'll most likely be using this kind of tool anyway. My personal favorite would be the Microsoft Edge immersive reader, both for its terrific quality and the fact that it's free. But if you're willing to pay, Natural Reader is phenomenal too.