In this article, we will see how to transform or convert a text document into a spoken audio file containing the reading of the text in Italian in mp3, wav, mp4, ogg, and wma format, thanks to some free download programs.
Reading is something that has been with us for thousands of years. Without a doubt, the creation of an alphabet to be able to structure sentences with a message was one of the best human inventions.
Thanks to reading, the world has made great strides, in fact, reading is essential to be able to learn, entertain, study, and work. Despite this, not all people are eager to read and prefer to listen and observe instead.
However, now you can read fiction, non-fiction, or that book that you are light years away from ending up through applications to convert text to audio.
Converting a text document to an audio file can generate many benefits, for example, it is easier to understand and to share with others. Furthermore, just as we easily memorize a song, it is possible that if we have to remember a text for an exam, turning it into audio and listening to it from our smartphone will facilitate this task.
Text-to-speech tools help you transform written words into spoken audio. Text-to-speech technology has come a long way over the years, with male and female voices, different accents, and the ability to control volume, pitch, frequency, and more.
How can you convert text to audio and save it to mp3?
This is possible thanks to a technology called text to speech. This computerized speech system can be used in both software and hardware, converting written language into spoken language.
This system is able to read complete sentences thanks to a large database that contains recorded words and language fragments.
Although at the beginning it was a very rudimentary technology that reproduced the very robotic voice, today we can find versions that reproduce the voice and the similarity with the human voice is very high. In fact, it is so advanced that it is able to reproduce not just text, but images and pictograms.
Furthermore, these systems are programmed to reproduce the voice in more languages, with a better accent, and also with regionalisms or local peculiarities.
There are dozens of free programs on the Internet that can convert text and save it as an audio file. Basically, it is about searching and choosing the one you like best.
Balabolka
Among the free tools to go from text to read audio, one of the ones we like the most is Balabolka. Mainly for two reasons- you can change the voice if you don’t like it for another one you have installed on your computer, and it offers the option of saving the text as MP3, MP4, or WAV, among other audio formats, to listen to it whenever you want.
Supports the following text formats- AZW, AZW3, CHM, DjVu, DOC, DOCX, EML, EPUB, FB2, FB3, HTML, LIT, MD, MOBI, ODP, ODS, ODT, PDB, PDF, PPT, PPTX, PRC, RTF, TCR, WPD, XLS and XLSX,
In addition to adjusting the volume and the reading speed, for example, if you want it to be slower because it’s something you are studying, it allows you to put marks to easily find a specific fragment. It also allows you to refine the pronunciation of a word until it sounds as accurate as possible.
You can download it from this link and set it as default language one of the 31 it supports (Italian included).
Panopreter Basic
The simplest program in our list of applications to convert text to audio. Panopreter Basic only reads files in Word formats, plus TXT, RTF, and web pages. You can adjust the volume and speed of the voice, create MP3 audio files, and it also has multilingual support.
Panopreter Basic can only be downloaded for Windows via this link.
ttsMP3
ttsMP3 is a brilliant text-to-speech tool. First of all, you can choose from many different languages through a variety of accents such as American and Welsh. Enter your text, choose the item from the drop-down menu, then click Read to hear it. If you are satisfied, click Download as MP3 to purchase the recording.
The main feature here is the ability to use syntax to change the entry. You can emphasize words, change the tone, create conversations, and much more. This is because the service is provided by Amazon Polly. You can view some syntax examples on the ttsMP3 site or see the full list on the Amazon Supported SSML Tags page.
Texttospeechrobot
This is a web application to convert text to mp3 audio. We can use it simply to listen aloud to any text we write. The most interesting thing is that it also allows us to convert the text to an Mp3 audio file and download it.
This web tool to convert text to speech and mp3 is completely free, it doesn’t even require registration. It also offers the advantage of being an online tool, it is used by the browser, so you won’t need to download or install any programs.
From here we can hear any text aloud and in any language, we can select the language from the list of a drop-down menu.
There is a “karaoke mode” in which the text is read aloud. To listen to any text we just have to write it or paste it, we can also load any plain text file.
At any time we can pause the playback and resume it whenever we want. As extra options, you can set the reading speed and height of the voices.
Instead in the other tab, we can convert them to MP3 and download them. Just write or paste your text, select a language, and then click the “CONVERT” button.
On the page itself, an audio player or a player will be shown, from which we can listen to the audio or download it. IMPORTANT- if you intend to download the audio in MP3 format, you will need to rename it by adding “.mp3” at the end, for example, myaudio.mp3.
If you need to listen to some text or convert it to audio, you just have to try it.
Text2Voice
Text 2 Voice does what it says in the title. Enter up to 2000 characters in the text box – a counter below the box shows how much you have used and if you need more for a single conversion, you will have to pay.
Next, use the Language and Regions drop-down menu. When done, click the yellow Convert to Speech button. It may take some time if you have written a lot. When you are ready, the audio will play automatically.
You can also expand the options for Additional Audio Settings (switch MP3 to OGG and change the sample rate) and Additional Voice Settings (Voice Rate and Voice Effect). If you change you will need to again click Convert to speech synthesis to process the change before clicking on Download MP3 / OGG.
Text2MP3
With Text2MP3 you can convert text to audio in seconds. The page is available in five languages, including Italian, and if you create an account you can access more functions.
In addition to converting your text to audio, you can add background music, download audio in MP3 format or get a link to share it on your blog, social network, etc. You can find out more at this link.
