Searching for an open source PDF reader with natural sounding text to speech

ak54

7/6/24, 10:09 PM

I am looking for a good open-source PDF reader with certain very specific functionalities:

I would like to be able to highlight on it and make text annotations, at the same time that text-to-speech is running, reading aloud the words of the PDF. I'd like to be able to select a region on a page of the PDF, and have it be able to start reading aloud from any arbitrary point of my choosing in the middle of the page. Of course, it goes without saying I should be able to start/pause/stop at the press of a button. Also the text-to-speech voices should sound more human than robotic.

I am using Ubuntu, and I have so far attempted to use orca with Okular or other PDF readers, and orca is not able to recognize the text, it just reads aloud the words "Layered Pane", and all the default voices that come with Ubuntu don't sound very human-like (I imagine there is a way to install more right?) I am aware there exist some closed-source software solutions to this problem (If I recall correctly I read that Microsoft Edge's browser's PDF reader may have some or many of the features I'm looking for) but I am looking for specifically open-source software only.

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software-recommendation

Sadaharu Wakisaka

7/15/24, 11:44 PM

Welcome to AskUbuntu. What version of Ubuntu do you use? My personal suggestion is to install Text-to-Speak add-on to either Google Chrome or Firefox and load PDF onto it, Microsoft Edge browser is a clone of Google Chrome.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Searching for an open source PDF reader with natural sounding text to speech

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