How to listen to materials and texts with NaturalReader

With the popularization of podcasts and audiobooks, sound content showed its potential for mobility and dynamism for the most diverse hours of the day. This is because they allow the public to listen to them at any time of the day, even when they are doing some activity or during a commute.

Despite this, there is still a lot of content that cannot be heard and that does not attract the attention of a part of the audience. But NaturalReader promises to change that. This application works as a text reader that the user enters the writing and it converts it to audio.  

Available in free and paid versions, the program promises a high quality reading and even supports scanned documents, such as PDF, in addition to allowing users to download the file in MP3 format, to be played on any device.

O showmetech made a test with this software and tell you more details.

How NaturalReader works

Despite being in English, using NaturalReader is very easy and there are three ways to access it: website, application or through an extension for Google Chrome.

Access via website:

• In your browser, go to the website of the Natural Reader.
• On the home screen, click on the “go to online reader” link, which will take you to the text entry page.
• At the top of the page, there is an adjustment bar for you to configure playback settings such as language and speech rate.
• Once the configuration is done, in the box in the center of the screen, paste the text for reading
• Now, just click on the “play” option and listen to the audio content in the browser itself.

Access via the Google Chrome extension:

• Install the NaturalReader extension in Google Chrome and, when finished, close the browser.
• Open Chrome again, which should now contain the extension icon in the toolbar, next to the URL field.
• Go to the website of your choice, click on the icon and press the button play. The app should start reading the text of the page accessed.

You can make some settings in the extension. To do this, open the Chrome settings menu, click on extensions, on the left side menu, select NaturalReader and set your preferences.

The extension bypasses page menus and ads, reads email texts and supports google docs documents.

Access via the Android or iOS app:

• Go to the smartphone app store, search for NaturalReader. (Android e iOS) and install the app.
• Open the app and, as in the web version, a text box will appear in the center of the screen, so you can paste the snippet for playback.
• On the top bar, there is the “play” icon, which, when selected, will read the pasted content.

On the same bar, there is the settings icon, where the user can set their playing preferences, such as voice type, speed, etc.

Adding PDF document for reading.

• To add a document in the app, click on the “+” icon, which is at the bottom right, and locate the file on your smartphone.

• Once this is done, click on the “play” icon and the app should start playing the text.

It is also possible to select a reading area and mark up the document.

Differences between the paid and free versions of NaturalReader

NaturalReader is divided into two versions: free and paid. The first is exclusively for non-commercial use, such as for studies and everyday reading, while the second is intended for commercial use, as it incorporates several professional tools.

The big difference between them, however, is the presence of premium voices, the possibility of playing scanned files and converting texts to MP3 format files.

Free version

The free mode is basic, but it incorporates several tools, such as an unlimited number of common voices, an interface with other apps, a pronunciation editor and a reader for texts written in PDF, DOC, TXT and ePUB.

Users can also use premium voices, which are smarter, for up to 20 minutes daily.

Paid version

The paid plan is divided into three other categories: non-commercial personnel, with a single, lifetime payment; commercial version, with three monthly payment plans; and the desktop options, with the same format as the previous one.

The personal version stands out for having natural voices included in the payment plans, which are unique and lifetime. It can be used on up to 2 devices and only the most expensive plan reads scanned files.  

The commercial web plan incorporates all types of text files, in addition to converting to MP3 format, limited to 1 million characters per month, giving users greater portability.

The commercial versions are more complete, as they are suitable for professional use, such as video narration, support for educational material, in addition to other multimedia works.

This also has an audio editor and an intelligent voice technology, which uses artificial intelligence to synthesize sounds and give more quality to the audio.

In this case, the plans are paid monthly, according to the number of subscribed users, which ranges from 2 to 20 subscriptions.

So, did you like our suggestion? If you know of another innovative application, leave it here in the comments so that the showmetech talk about it.