speech to text for pdf

Conveniently hear PDF files read aloud.

The option to have a PDF file read aloud offers numerous advantages. It’s also an easy feature to master.

Perhaps you need your documents read aloud to you because reading print text is too difficult. Or maybe you’ve just downloaded a PDF file of a book to listen to, but you really want to savor the story and language slowly. Adobe Reader enables you to have your files read aloud and even customize the experience by setting the narrator’s voice and choosing the pace of the reading to best suit your needs.

How to have a PDF read aloud.

Having a PDF read aloud can increase accessibility if you are visually impaired or have difficulty reading the text. Listening to a PDF can also help you multitask. Use Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader app to have the text in your PDF read aloud to you.

Simply follow these steps to have Acrobat Reader read PDF aloud:

• Open Reader and navigate to the document page you want to have read aloud.
• From the top-left menu, click View, then Read Out Loud.
• You can choose to have the whole document read aloud or just the page you’re on.
• Select either Read to End of Document or Read This Page Only, respectively.

The reading will start at the page you’re currently on, even if you select Read to End of Document. To start at the beginning, navigate to the first page.

At any point, you can also choose from several options to customize the experience of having your PDFs read out loud:

• To pause or stop the read-out-loud function, go back to the Read Out Loud selection from the View dropdown menu and select either option.
• To choose your preferred reader voice, go to the top-right menu and click Edit, then Preferences. Choose Reading. Remove the checkmark on Use Default Voice, and finally choose the narration voice you like from the dropdown list.
• To adjust the pace of the reading, either increase the Words Per Minute count or lower it, depending on your needs.

Now you can have your PDF read aloud with your unique preference selections.

Benefits of text to speech for PDFs.

Text to speech can be a useful tool for a variety of people. People with vision loss can access a PDF with text to speech. Anyone who prefers to listen to text, whether it’s in an effort to avoid eyestrain or improve workflow, can use Acrobat Reader’s simple PDF text to speech feature. Text to speech can also help you multitask.

To make sure that a PDF is accessible to someone with vision loss, ensure that the text is not in an image but is recognized as text by Acrobat Reader. You can also tag headings, tables, and lists to increase accessibility.

Listen to PDF documents on the go.

Fortunately, Acrobat Reader can read PDF aloud on any device, so you can listen to the content of a PDF from anywhere. For example, if you have a long commute and you’re trying to ramp up productivity, you can use the PDF reader voice to listen to notes, documents, books, or other important information while you drive. If you need a refresher on your notes before a meeting, listen to your PDF while you travel to your meeting. You can use text to speech to enjoy all the features of Acrobat Reader and work with PDFs from anywhere.

Do more with your PDF.

The PDF is one of the most widely used formats in professional settings and is an industry standard for people in many fields, from business to education to law. Its printable format shows up the same across all devices, so it’s easy to share and view on the go. Adobe’s powerful PDF tools can help you use the PDF to its fullest, from creating forms to redacting or encrypting.

See what else you can do with PDFs with Acrobat , from converting files like Word to PDF to splitting files , merging PDFs , rotating pages , and more.

Read and Listen to PDF Documents Online

Easily hear your PDF documents as audio books and experience the joy of hands-free reading. Start listening to your favorite PDF documents online today with ReadLoudly.

Select a PDF file

Max file size 100MB.

How to listen to your PDF documents

Listening to your PDF documents hands-free is simple with ReadLoudly. Here's how to get started:

Select the PDF document you want to listen to. Our website allows you to easily upload and select the PDF document you want to listen to.

Once the PDF is loaded, navigate to the page you want to listen to. Our intuitive interface allows you to quickly and easily navigate to any page in your PDF document.

Click the play button to start listening. Our advanced text-to-speech technology will read your document out loud, allowing you to sit back, relax, and enjoy your PDF hands-free.

With ReadLoudly, you can enjoy your favorite PDF documents without having to read them yourself. Start listening today and experience the joy of hands-free reading.

Read and Listen Anywhere

With ReadLoudly.com, you can easily upload any PDF document and read it as a flipbook from anywhere, at any time. Plus, with the integrated text-to-speech feature, you can listen to your documents on any device.

Safe and Secure

We take your privacy seriously, which is why we never store any documents on our server or share them without your permission. Rest assured that your data is safe and secure with ReadLoudly.com.

Customizable Reading Experience

With ReadLoudly.com, you can customize your reading experience with adjustable font sizes, colors, and backgrounds. Plus, you can easily navigate between pages and sections with our user-friendly interface.

Share with Ease

Once you're done reading or listening to a document, you can easily share the flipbook with anyone via email or social media. Spread awareness and enjoyment in no time!

Customizable Text-to-Speech

Choose from a range of voices, customize the speed and pitch to your liking, and let ReadLoudly.com read your PDF document to you. Personalize your reading experience with our customizable text-to-speech feature.

No Downloads Required

You don't need to download any software or plugins to use ReadLoudly.com. It's a hassle-free way to read and listen to PDF documents online.

Listening to your eBooks hands-free is simple with ReadLoudly. Here's how to get started:

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Readloudly?

Readloudly is a versatile online platform designed for reading and listening to a wide range of content, including PDFs, flipbooks, ebooks, and text-to-speech materials. Users can access the platform as guests or by logging in with their email, where they can enjoy a personalized experience tailored to their preferences.

How do I access my account on Readloudly?

Users can access their accounts on Readloudly either as guests or by logging in with their email, including Gmail login. Once logged in, users can access their personalized dashboard, where they can store books, manage preferences, and access exclusive features.

Can I share books with friends on Readloudly?

Yes, users can easily share books with friends via email by utilizing the built-in sharing feature on Readloudly. Simply enter the recipient's email address, and they will receive access to the shared book.

Can I customize my reading and listening experience on Readloudly?

Absolutely! Readloudly offers a plethora of customization options, including changing the language while listening, selecting from over 50 different voices, adjusting playback speed, enabling dark mode, zooming in and out while reading, and setting preferences for text highlight colors and dark mode.

How can I interact with PDFs on Readloudly?

With Readloudly, users can interact with PDFs in various ways, including highlighting and bookmarking specific lines, playing, repeating, and jumping to any page using the sidebar's page view option. Additionally, users can toggle between text and page view modes for a more streamlined reading experience.

Is customer support available on Readloudly?

Yes, Readloudly offers 24/7 customer support to address any inquiries or issues users may encounter while using the platform. Users can contact the support team through the help button on the website or dashboard and can expect prompt assistance.

What exclusive features are available on the user dashboard?

The user dashboard on Readloudly provides access to four exclusive options: "Books You Have Listened," "Add New Book," "Lines You Have Bookmarked," and "Preferences." Users can manage their listened books, add new ones, access bookmarked lines, and customize preferences such as text highlight and dark mode settings.

How do I access my highlighted lines and bookmarks on Readloudly?

Users can easily access their highlighted lines and bookmarks by navigating to the "Bookmark" tab on their dashboard. Here, they can view and manage all their bookmarked content for easy reference.

Can I provide feedback or report issues on Readloudly?

Yes, Readloudly welcomes user feedback and encourages users to report any issues they encounter while using the platform. Users can provide feedback or report issues through the help button, and the support team will promptly address them.

Is Readloudly accessible on mobile devices?

Yes, Readloudly is accessible on various devices, including smartphones and tablets, through the website or the mobile app. Users can enjoy their favorite books and stories on the go, ensuring a seamless reading and listening experience across different devices.

Site News and Updates

March 3rd, 2024.

Exciting news! We've enhanced our OCR capabilities, providing more accurate text recognition. Now, with OCR, we offer support for over a hundred languages, making your reading experience truly global. Explore a world of literature in your preferred language!

Say goodbye to language barriers! With our new language change option, navigating through diverse literary landscapes is now hassle-free. Choose your preferred language and immerse yourself in a seamless reading experience.

Discover a refined reading experience with our latest design changes on the most viewed viewer page. Enjoy a smoother user experience, cleaner reading interface, and cool icons that enhance your interaction with the content. Immerse yourself in the world of literature with style and simplicity!

January 24th, 2024

Embark on a seamless reading journey with our new Text Viewer—an immersive experience designed to focus solely on the textual content of PDFs. Enjoy features such as highlighting, bookmarking, and effortless reading, all tailored to enhance your interaction with the written word.

For the PDF Viewer, take control with precision using zoom in and zoom out buttons. In the Text Viewer, elevate your reading experience by customizing font sizes with easy-to-use buttons. Your preferences shape your unique reading adventure!

Explore the power of Text-to-Speech with our new caption section! Enable captions to view the current sentence you're reading or listening to. Dive into the immersive experience where each spoken word is highlighted with a distinct color. Experience reading in a whole new way!

December 12th, 2023

Tired of straining your eyes during late-night reading sessions? We've got you covered! Introducing our new Dark Mode feature—because your comfort matters. Enjoy a soothing, eye-friendly interface while delving into your favorite documents.

Exciting news! Now, you can share the joy of reading seamlessly. Whether it's a captivating PDF, an engaging eBook, or a valuable textbook, sharing is caring! Head to your dashboard's book section, hit the share option, enter your friend's email, and voilà—spread the reading love!

But wait, there's more! Our Share Option isn't just about sharing; it's your personal storage haven. Safeguard your cherished documents while creating a vibrant reading community. Update your experience now and let the reading revolution begin! 🚀

Nov 22th,2023

A new version for added flexibility. Store and access multiple books effortlessly, eliminating the need to upload the same book repeatedly. Enjoy reading or listening whenever you want!

• Login : Experience a streamlined and secure login process, ensuring easy access to your personalized features and content.
• Personal Dashboard : Your customized hub for an organized and efficient user experience, providing quick access to all your account settings and activities.
• Book Storage : Store and manage multiple books effortlessly, eliminating the need to re-upload, and enjoy a clutter-free reading environment.
• Highlight and Bookmark : Enhance your reading experience by highlighting and bookmarking specific sections, making it easy to revisit and engage with key content.
• Preference : Personalize your reading experience with color customization for highlights and bookmarks, allowing you to tailor the visual aspects to your preferences.

Sep 27th,2023

We're thrilled to introduce a game-changing update to the ReadLoudly PDF viewer that promises an even smoother reading experience. 📚

• Each page is now processed on our powerful servers, significantly reducing the load on your browser.
• Enjoy lightning-fast page loading and navigation, no matter the size of your PDF document.
• Say goodbye to slow rendering and hello to a seamless reading experience.

Sep 19th,2023

Enhance your reading experience with our new Text-to-Speech page. Now, you can easily convert written text or upload a TXT file and listen to it being read aloud. Whether it's articles, notes, or your own writings, our text-to-speech technology brings content to life, making it accessible and engaging.

Introducing our convenient Page Selection option! We've made it even easier to read books and documents. You can now select the specific pages you want to read, resulting in faster load times for larger books. Customize your reading experience and access content more efficiently.

Sep 13th,2023

We've added a handy option to Repeat a Single Sentence. Now, you can easily replay a specific sentence or passage while listening, ensuring you never miss a word of your favorite content.

Our team has been hard at work, addressing issues to improve your audio playback experience. Say goodbye to audio player glitches and enjoy smoother, uninterrupted listening.

Sep 6th,2023

We're excited to unveil our fresh, new logo! It represents our commitment to providing you with innovative and user-friendly reading and listening experiences.

Introducing the eBook Reader Page, where you can now listen to your eBooks directly. Immerse yourself in your favorite eBooks with our text-to-speech technology.

Transform your eBooks into interactive flipbooks effortlessly. Visit our eBook to Flipbook Page to view your eBook files in an engaging flipbook format.

Sep 1st,2023

We've upgraded to a more powerful server! This means your books will be ready for reading even faster than before. Enjoy quicker access to your content.

Your security is our priority. We've implemented enhancements to ensure your data and reading experience are more secure than ever.

PDF Text to Speech

Read PDF aloud with 700 realistic AI text to speech voices supporting 90 languages. Try our PDF audio reader free online now. Convert PDF to speech, online PDF read out loud.

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Read PDF Aloud

Listen to PDF documents using Narakeet, providing a great alternative way to consume content for multitaskers or those on the go. Use our “PDF Read” feature to read out loud PDF documents.

Read PDF Out Loud

In just a few minutes, you will get an audio version of your PDF. Download the audio, and play it in any audio player to listen to a pdf document.

Get started

Important PDF to speech converter limitations

At the moment, Narakeet can only read PDF documents out loud if they have text embedded into the document, and not just vectors for printing. PDF creation apps can turn the document into vector shapes and optimize it for printing, without keeping the embedded text. Documents like that require optical character recognition (OCR) for reading - effectively scanning images back into text. Although we plan to support reading pdf out loud using OCR in the future, this is not directly possible with Narakeet.

To read out loud PDF using Narakeet, make sure it still contains text, and not just vector shapes.

If you would like to be notified when it becomes possible to use text to speech for PDF documents containing only vector shapes (with OCR), get in touch with [email protected] .

PDF to Speech Free

You can use Narakeet as a PDF to speech app, and read a pdf out loud without even registering. Narakeet allows you convert 20 files into audio for free. After that, you can sign up for one of our paid plans and continue using our text to speech PDF reader.

Text to Speech PDF

Read the text from a PDF document aloud, and turn PDF documents into podcasts or audiobooks easily. Our PDF text to speech reader has many usages, from reading essays and papers while running, to making it possible for people with visual impairments or dyslexia to consume the content from PDF articles.

PDF to speech converter

Narakeet is an app that reads PDF out loud, as well as many other types of documents (Word, RTF, EPUB and many others). You can use our pdf to speech converter easily online. Our PDF text to speech reader is perfect for people who are slow readers, or have difficulty reading, as it provides an accessible way to consume information from written files. In addition, it can be a helpful tool for those who want to multitask and listen to their documents while doing other activities.

How to read out loud a PDF file?

Narakeet TTS text to speech makes it easy to read out loud PDF documents. You can upload a PDF document to our text to voice converter by clicking on the “Upload Document” button. Make sure to check the content of the PDF - especially to remove any page headers or footers, then click “Create Audio” to convert the PDF to MP3 or WAV file.

You can convert PDF to MP3 for small files, or create uncompressed WAV files for professional use such as broadcasting or audiobooks.

How to listen to a PDF document?

Listen to a PDF document easily by using Narakeet. Our life-like speech synthesizers can read out loud PDF in 90 using 700. Just upload your document to our text to audio tool , and experience a convenient, hands-free way to consume content. Our cutting-edge technology ensures that the generated speech maintains proper intonation, pacing, and clarity, providing you with an enjoyable and immersive listening experience.

With Narakeet, you can customize the narration style to suit your preferences or match the document’s context, giving you a personalized listening experience. You can use multiple voices when reading the document , adjust the reading speed to match your focus, and add pauses to make the content easier to consume. Mnd modify many other properties of the PDF audio reader, including voice pitch and volume .

Narakeet helps you create text to speech voiceovers , turn Powerpoint presentations and Markdown scripts into engaging videos. It is under active development, so things change frequently. Keep up to date: RSS , Slack , Twitter , YouTube , Facebook , Instagram , TikTok

9 Best PDF Voice Reader for Windows

Reading is fun and there’s no doubt about it. But there are times when you would rather like to hear it out. For instance, boring reports and other articles that you receive in your email in PDF format aren’t fun to read. They are boring and monotonous.

So, why not use a PDF voice reader app that makes your life a whole lot easier. They will translate the text into voice and read it out to you. So you can also multi-task and work on something else. A real time saver.

Native Option

1. microsoft edge.

The easiest way to convert PDF to voice is via the in-built Microsoft Edge browser. All you have to do is right-click on the PDF file and select “Microsoft Edge”. Once you have the PDF opened in Microsoft Edge, you will have a “Read Aloud” option on the top toolbar.

Additionally, Microsoft Edge also provides you the option to read aloud a select part of a PDF. To do that, just select a portion of the PDF, right-click and click on the “Read aloud selection” option. Moreover, you can also change the language of the reader, the voice of the reader, the reading speed, etc.

Third-party Apps

2. adobe acrobat reader.

Adobe Acrobat Reader is a popular PDF reader app. Most people use it and chances are that you already have Adobe Reader installed on your PC. If not, then you can download the latest version using the link below. Uncheck unnecessary add-ons accordingly. I don’t like McAfee much.

Once you are done, open any PDF file that you want to be read to you. By default, it should open within Adobe Acrobat Reader. If not, right-click and choose the “Open With” option.

Once the PDF is open, click on  View and select the “ Read Out Loud” option at the bottom of the list. Now, the Read aloud mode is activated. Once the feature is activated, you can click on a paragraph and it’ll be read out to you. When Adobe is reading to you, ideally, you should see a progress bar somewhere in the middle.

While it gets the job done, the trouble is, I have to click on paragraphs once the machine is done reading it to me. To counter this problem, what you can do is go back to Settings. This time, you will see new options. You can have Adobe read the current page or the entire document.

On a side note, it’s better to memorize the shortcuts so you don’t have to mess around with the options anymore.

Download  Adobe Reader  (Free)

3. Natural Reader

Natural Reader takes things to the next level. Foremost, it works with PDF as well as Word, TXT, ePub files. Additionally, it can not only convert text to audio, but it can also create audio files from PDF files. This means you can transfer these audio files on your mobile and play it while you go for your morning jog. Moreover, you can control the speed and speaker settings.

Natural Reader also has an online version that you can use to quickly read blogs and news stories. There are apps available for both Android and iOS platforms.

Also Read:   Best Free Open Source PDF Editors for Windows and Mac

My favorite feature is the pronunciation editor that lets you tweak the pronunciation of individual words. This makes Natural Reader sound more human. Natural Reader also offers a Commercial version of the product for a one-time payment of $129.50 and an Ultimate version for $199.50. The premium version offers a few additional features like an OCR feature that helps you to convert printed text to digital text, batch conversion, voice presets, etc.

Download  Natural Reader  (Freemium)

4. Read Aloud

Read Aloud lands somewhere in between Adobe Reader which is fairly basic and Natural Reader which is a powerful tool. This free software comes from the den of Microsoft.

Similar to Natural Reader, Read Aloud can read not only PDF files on your PC but it can also handle web pages, and a number of different formats like Word, Epub, TXT, DOCX, and more. If you are using Windows 10 and Edge browser, you can share files directly with the app.

You also get all the usual voice settings like volume control, speed rate, pitch rate, fonts, color scheme, etc. There is a pronunciation editor as well that you can use to change the way a word sounds. This gives you more control over the way Read Aloud looks, feels, and functions.

Download  Read-Aloud  (Free)

5. Power Text to Speech Reader

Now, Read Aloud doesn’t provide an option to convert PDF to audio files. This is where Power Text to Speech Reader steps in. It lets you convert PDF to audio files and save it for later listening. So now I can carry the audio file in a PD or upload it to Drive. Another striking feature is that also there is also support for email format (EML) and RTF along with HTML and Doc. This matters because if I receive a long email, I can use it to listen to the whole thing instead of just reading the attachment.

Power Text to Speech Reader also works with Windows 7/8 machines. Moreover, there is a handy plugin available that will allow you to make it work with IE. Edge, as you know, is only available on Windows 10 onwards. As far as voice support is concerned, there are more than a dozen voices to choose from which brings it on par with Natural Reader.

Download  Power Text to Speech Reader  (Free)

Also Read:   Best Apps to Convert PDF to Word Document

6. Balabolka

Another free Text-To-Speech (TTS) program that will help you listen to your PDF files while you are working on other things. Balabolka can convert and save PDF files into audio formats like MP3, MP4, OGG, and WMA. Balabolka supports the maximum number of file formats I have seen in any TTS software list so far. It supports AZW, XLS, XLSX, CHM, DjVu, DOC, DOCX, EML, EPUB, FB2, HTML, etc.

There is also a portable version of the software that you can carry on a flash drive. It’s good for people like me who are constantly traveling and use different computers. There is support for different languages and voices (8 using SAPI 4 by Microsoft). There is a skin pack available to change the way UI looks, plus you can change fonts and colors. You can change pitch and rate too.

Download  Balabolka  (Free)

Chrome Extension

7. read aloud.

No, this was not developed by Microsoft as the software that I shared above. This is a 3rd party  extension for Chrome  that will allow you to listen to PDF files on the web without having to download them to your PC.

Install the extension like any other. When you click on the icon, you will see something like in the above screenshot. Choose your language and voice, desired speed and pitch as well as volume.

Now, when you click on the icon again while you are on a page, it will begin translating text to voice and you will see the following screen instead.

You can pause or stop whenever you want. Really simple.

This is not to say that it won’t work for local PDF files. To play the PDF file form your hard drive, simply drag and drop them to the chrome browser and click on the extension, and that’s it. The extension is light-weight and would help you when you receive PDF files in your Gmail or Outlook. This is a bare-bones tool with little to no additional features. It does offer a number of voices to choose from which will make the experience more human.

Install  Read Aloud  (Free)

Online Tool

8. ttsreader.

Like the previous one, TTSReader is not a Windows tool, instead, it’s an online website. The only reason it made it into the list is because of the ease of use and simplicity. All you have to do is copy-paste the PDF file into the textbox or just drag-and-drop your PDF file into it. It will convert text to voice in no time.

Visit  TTSReader  (Free)

Wrapping Up: PDF Voice Reader for Windows

Microsoft Edge and TTSReader is a great option if you don’t want to install any third-party app. For basic use cases, Adobe Reader is the ideal option. For more power users, I would recommend Balabolka which offers a lot for free. If you can afford a paid software and want good support, or maybe need a commercial version, Natural Reader will serve you well.

For more issues or queries, let me know in the comments below.

Also Read:   10 Best Text-to-Speech Apps for Android

Gaurav Bidasaria

Gaurav is an editor here at TechWiser but also contributes as a writer. He has more than 10 years of experience as a writer and has written how-to guides, comparisons, listicles, and in-depth explainers on Windows, Android, web, and cloud apps, and the Apple ecosystem. He loves tinkering with new gadgets and learning about new happenings in the tech world. He has previously worked on Guiding Tech, Make Tech Easier, and other prominent tech blogs and has over 1000+ articles that have been read over 50 million times.

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That means you could use TurboScribe to transcribe your entire life (24 hours per day x 30 days per month = 720 hours, or 43,200 minutes)! As one customer said, "I transcribe everything without thinking."

If you're transcribing very high volumes (> 720 hours per month, or top 0.1% of usage), we wrote up a helpful guide to help you get the most out of TurboScribe.

How do I cancel my subscription?

You can cancel your subscription at any time by navigating to "Account Settings" and clicking "Manage Subscription". You'll have full access to TurboScribe through the end of the current billing period.

Who is behind TurboScribe?

I have more questions..

Email me at [email protected] with any questions and I will get back to you ASAP. I want to hear from you!

" Scarily good . I transcribed hundreds of audio and video files in only a few minutes."

From The Blog

Getting Started with TurboScribe

A guide to transcribing your first file with TurboScribe, including features like language selection, speaker recognition, and downloading transcri...

Export Transcripts and Manage Files in Bulk

Export transcripts and manage multiple files at the same time. Learn more about TurboScribe's bulk management tools.

Security and Privacy: Frequently Asked Questions

Learn more about data privacy and security with TurboScribe.

"...wow, completely different game and great results. This is a solution I was waiting for."

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2021 © Aspose

Convert PDF to speech online

Read a scanned pdf aloud with this free online application..

Powered by Aspose.com and Aspose.cloud

or drag it in this box *

Automatically adjust image contrast to make text clearer

Automatically straighten a skewed or rotated image

Upscale a low-resolution image to increase details

We try to recognize image type if it’s a document or just an image with text.

If your image is small or contains only lines of text without other content or noise.

Use document structure recognition model to extract structure of the document.

Use a text detection algorithm that works well with sparse text, tables, IDs, invoices, complex layouts, small images.

Combination of DSR and Text Detector algorithm if you had a document-like structure and want to detect all text.

Choose the optimal recognition mode

Do not read dim or blurry areas

Try to read all areas of an image

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We have already processed 2631030 files with a total size of 2529263 MB

Aspose.OCR PDF to speech

Aspose.OCR can go beyond extracting text from scanned PDFs and converting them into editable and searchable documents. With it, you can read aloud any PDF document in a fluid, natural-sounding human voice that can be played in the background or downloaded. Read aloud books, articles, contracts, and other documents that only contain scanned images without written text or a special accessibility layer.

This free online application allows you to explore our PDF-to-speech capabilities without installing any applications and writing a single line of code. It supports all modern browsers on desktops and smartphones. Just paste a text, sit back and listen to the information you need.

This free app provided by  Aspose OCR

How to convert PDF to speech

Provide an pdf.

Upload a PDF file, or simply enter the document's web address.

Start recognition

Click "Recognize" button to start analyzing the document.

Wait a few seconds

Wait until the text is extracted from the PDF.

Read text aloud

Click "Play" button to read the PDF aloud or download an audio file.

Does this app support my language?

At the moment, the application can only read English. Support for other languages may be added in the future.

I don’t like the result. What can I do to improve it?

Try enabling automatic image corrections under Options: enhance contrast, straighten and upscale image.

Do I need an editable PDF?

The application can read PDF documents that consist only of scanned images without text or accessibility layers.

Can I use the app from mobile devices?

Yes, the application works in all popular web browsers on all devices and platforms, including smartphones. No additional software is required.

Can I save and share results?

You can play the synthesized speech, save and listen to it later, send it via your favorite messenger or email, and share it in the cloud storage.

Is this app free?

Yes, the application provides full capabilities of Aspose.OCR for free, for as long as you need.

The features you will like

Sit back and listen

Listen to the content of a scanned PDF while staying focused on the task at hand: while driving, cooking, working out, and more.

Export speech to audio files

Save the PDF content as an audio file to listen to it later, send it via your favorite messenger or email, and share it in the cloud storage.

Recognize documents from the Internet

There is no need to upload PDFs to your system. Just paste the web address of the document and read aloud the text.

Top recognition quality

Years of development resulted in a state-of-art optical character recognition engine with superior speed and accuracy. Aspose products are used by most Fortune 100 companies across 114 countries.

Flexible recognition settings

Built-in pre-processing filters can straighten rotated and skewed pages, automatically enhance contrast, or attempt to restore additional detail in low-resolution images. You can turn them on at any time to further improve recognition accuracy.

Zero system load

Recognition is carried out by high-performance Aspose Cloud. The application has minimum hardware or operating system requirements - you can use it even on entry-level systems and mobile devices without loss of accuracy and performance.

• Free Support
• Free Consulting
• Paid Consulting

© Aspose Pty Ltd 2001-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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Audio to Text

Transcribe audio to text automatically, using AI. Over +120 languages supported

Accurate audio transcriptions with AI

Effortlessly convert spoken words into written text with unmatched accuracy using VEED’s AI audio-to-text technology. Get instant transcriptions for your podcasts, interviews, lectures, meetings, and all types of business communications. Say goodbye to manually transcribing your audio and embrace efficiency. Our advanced algorithms use machine learning to ensure contextually relevant transcripts, even for complex recordings.

With customizable options and quick turnaround, you have full control over the transcription process. Join countless professionals who rely on VEED to streamline their work, making every spoken word accessible and searchable. Our text converter also features a built-in video and audio editor to help you achieve a crisp, studio-quality sound for your recordings. Increase your productivity to new heights!

How to transcribe audio to text:

Upload or record

Upload your audio or video to VEED or record one using our online audio recorder .

Auto-transcribe and translate

Auto-transcribe your video from the Subtitles menu. You can also translate your transcript to over 120 languages. Select a language and translate the transcript instantly.

Review and export

Review and edit the transcription if necessary. Just click on a line of text and start typing. Download your transcript in VTT, SRT, or TXT format.

Learn more about our audio-to-text tool in this video:

Instant transcription downloads for better documentation

VEED uses cutting-edge technology to transcribe your audio to text at lightning-fast speed. Download your transcript in one click and keep track of your records better—without paying for expensive transcription services. Get a written copy of your recordings instantly and one proofread for 100% accuracy. Downloading transcriptions is available to premium subscribers. Check our pricing page for more info.

Transcribe videos to bump your content in search results

Our audio-to-text tool is part of a robust and powerful video editing software that also lets you edit and transcribe your video content. Transcribe your video and add captions to help your content rank higher in search engine results. Drive traffic to your website, increase engagement in your social media pages, and grow your channel. Animate your captions and captivate viewers in just a few clicks!

Convert audio to text and create globally accessible content

VEED can help your brand create content that caters to a diverse audience. With automatic transcriptions and instant translations , you can publish globally accessible and inclusive content. Translate your audio and video transcriptions to over 100 languages. Reach untapped markets and help your business grow with instant, reliable, and affordable transcriptions.

Frequently Asked Questions

VEED lets you automatically transcribe your audio to text at lightning-fast speed! Upload your audio file to VEED and click on the Subtitles tool on the left menu. Upload your audio file to VEED and auto-transcribe from the Subtitles menu. Download your transcript in VTT, TXT, or SRT format!

Yes, you can! Upload your video file to VEED and our software will transcribe the original audio that was recorded in your video with the help of AI.

Absolutely! When you’re done downloading the TXT, VTT, or SRT file, click on ‘Export’ to download the video with the subtitles on it. Your video will be exported as an MP4 file.

Depending on how the speech or recording is spaced out through the video, VEED will separate the transcriptions into different boxes. Just click on each box and start typing or editing the text.

Yes—but only the subtitles appearing on the video and not the TXT file. You can choose from a wide range of fonts and styles. Change its size, color, and opacity.

VEED features a 98.5% accuracy in automatic transcriptions and translations with the help of AI. Transcribe your audio to text and translate them to over 100 languages instantly without sacrificing quality.

Discover more:

• Assamese Speech to Text
• Audio Transcription
• Bengali Speech to Text
• Cantonese Speech to Text
• Chinese Speech to Text
• Dictation Transcription
• German Speech to Text
• Japanese Speech to Text
• Kannada Speech to Text
• Korean Speech to Text
• M4A to Text
• MP3 to Text
• Music Transcription
• Sinhala Speech to Text
• Speech to Text Arabic
• Speech to Text Bulgarian
• Speech to Text Danish
• Speech to Text Dutch
• Speech to Text Finnish
• Speech to Text in Marathi
• Speech to Text Italian
• Speech to Text Portuguese
• Speech to Text Russian
• Speech to Text Serbian
• Speech to Text Slovak
• Speech to Text Swedish
• Speech to Text Thai
• Speech to Text Turkish
• Speech to Text Vietnamese
• Tamil Audio to Text
• Telugu Audio to Text Converter
• Transcribe Recordings to Text
• Verbatim Transcription
• Voice Memo Transcription
• Voice Message to Text
• WAV to Text

What they say about VEED

Veed is a great piece of browser software with the best team I've ever seen. Veed allows for subtitling, editing, effect/text encoding, and many more advanced features that other editors just can't compete with. The free version is wonderful, but the Pro version is beyond perfect. Keep in mind that this a browser editor we're talking about and the level of quality that Veed allows is stunning and a complete game changer at worst.

I love using VEED as the speech to subtitles transcription is the most accurate I've seen on the market. It has enabled me to edit my videos in just a few minutes and bring my video content to the next level

Laura Haleydt - Brand Marketing Manager, Carlsberg Importers

The Best & Most Easy to Use Simple Video Editing Software! I had tried tons of other online editors on the market and been disappointed. With VEED I haven't experienced any issues with the videos I create on there. It has everything I need in one place such as the progress bar for my 1-minute clips, auto transcriptions for all my video content, and custom fonts for consistency in my visual branding.

Diana B - Social Media Strategist, Self Employed

More from VEED

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The easiest way to get the transcript of a YouTube video without jumping through a million hoops. Here's how.

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Want to bump up your engagement, improve video SEO, and make your content more inclusive? Here's how to download and upload SRT files for your next video!

11 Easy Ways to Add Music to Video [Step-By-Step Guide]

Not sure where to find music for video whether free or paid? Want to learn how to find it, pick the right song, and then add it to your video content? Then dig in!

Convert audio to text, translate to multiple languages, and more!

VEED is a comprehensive and incredibly easy-to-use video editing software that allows you to do so much more than just transcribe audio to text. Apart from transcribing an audio file, you can transcribe the original recording of a video. Add subtitles to your videos to make them more accessible for everyone. It also has all the video editing tools you need. All tools are accessible online so you don’t need to install any software. Try VEED today and start creating professional-quality, globally accessible content!

Speech to Text - Voice Typing & Transcription

Take notes with your voice for free, or automatically transcribe audio & video recordings. secure, accurate & blazing fast..

~ Proudly serving millions of users since 2015 ~

I need to >

Dictate Notes

Start taking notes, on our online voice-enabled notepad right away, for free.

Transcribe Recordings

Automatically transcribe (and optionally translate) audios & videos - upload files from your device or link to an online resource (Drive, YouTube, TikTok or other). Export to text, docx, video subtitles and more.

Speechnotes is a reliable and secure web-based speech-to-text tool that enables you to quickly and accurately transcribe your audio and video recordings, as well as dictate your notes instead of typing, saving you time and effort. With features like voice commands for punctuation and formatting, automatic capitalization, and easy import/export options, Speechnotes provides an efficient and user-friendly dictation and transcription experience. Proudly serving millions of users since 2015, Speechnotes is the go-to tool for anyone who needs fast, accurate & private transcription. Our Portfolio of Complementary Speech-To-Text Tools Includes:

Voice typing - Chrome extension

Dictate instead of typing on any form & text-box across the web. Including on Gmail, and more.

Transcription API & webhooks

Speechnotes' API enables you to send us files via standard POST requests, and get the transcription results sent directly to your server.

Zapier integration

Combine the power of automatic transcriptions with Zapier's automatic processes. Serverless & codeless automation! Connect with your CRM, phone calls, Docs, email & more.

Android Speechnotes app

Speechnotes' notepad for Android, for notes taking on your mobile, battle tested with more than 5Million downloads. Rated 4.3+ ⭐

iOS TextHear app

TextHear for iOS, works great on iPhones, iPads & Macs. Designed specifically to help people with hearing impairment participate in conversations. Please note, this is a sister app - so it has its own pricing plan.

Audio & video converting tools

Tools developed for fast - batch conversions of audio files from one type to another and extracting audio only from videos for minimizing uploads.

Our Sister Apps for Text-To-Speech & Live Captioning

Complementary to Speechnotes

Reads out loud texts, files & web pages

Reads out loud texts, PDFs, e-books & websites for free

Speechlogger

Live Captioning & Translation

Live captions & translations for online meetings, webinars, and conferences.

Need Human Transcription? We Can Offer a 10% Discount Coupon

We do not provide human transcription services ourselves, but, we partnered with a UK company that does. Learn more on human transcription and the 10% discount .

Dictation Notepad

Start taking notes with your voice for free

Speech to Text online notepad. Professional, accurate & free speech recognizing text editor. Distraction-free, fast, easy to use web app for dictation & typing.

Speechnotes is a powerful speech-enabled online notepad, designed to empower your ideas by implementing a clean & efficient design, so you can focus on your thoughts. We strive to provide the best online dictation tool by engaging cutting-edge speech-recognition technology for the most accurate results technology can achieve today, together with incorporating built-in tools (automatic or manual) to increase users' efficiency, productivity and comfort. Works entirely online in your Chrome browser. No download, no install and even no registration needed, so you can start working right away.

Speechnotes is especially designed to provide you a distraction-free environment. Every note, starts with a new clear white paper, so to stimulate your mind with a clean fresh start. All other elements but the text itself are out of sight by fading out, so you can concentrate on the most important part - your own creativity. In addition to that, speaking instead of typing, enables you to think and speak it out fluently, uninterrupted, which again encourages creative, clear thinking. Fonts and colors all over the app were designed to be sharp and have excellent legibility characteristics.

Example use cases

• Voice typing
• Writing notes, thoughts
• Medical forms - dictate
• Transcribers (listen and dictate)

Transcription Service

Start transcribing

Fast turnaround - results within minutes. Includes timestamps, auto punctuation and subtitles at unbeatable price. Protects your privacy: no human in the loop, and (unlike many other vendors) we do NOT keep your audio. Pay per use, no recurring payments. Upload your files or transcribe directly from Google Drive, YouTube or any other online source. Simple. No download or install. Just send us the file and get the results in minutes.

• Transcribe interviews
• Captions for Youtubes & movies
• Auto-transcribe phone calls or voice messages
• Students - transcribe lectures
• Podcasters - enlarge your audience by turning your podcasts into textual content
• Text-index entire audio archives

Key Advantages

Speechnotes is powered by the leading most accurate speech recognition AI engines by Google & Microsoft. We always check - and make sure we still use the best. Accuracy in English is very good and can easily reach 95% accuracy for good quality dictation or recording.

Lightweight & fast

Both Speechnotes dictation & transcription are lightweight-online no install, work out of the box anywhere you are. Dictation works in real time. Transcription will get you results in a matter of minutes.

Super Private & Secure!

Super private - no human handles, sees or listens to your recordings! In addition, we take great measures to protect your privacy. For example, for transcribing your recordings - we pay Google's speech to text engines extra - just so they do not keep your audio for their own research purposes.

Health advantages

Typing may result in different types of Computer Related Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI). Voice typing is one of the main recommended ways to minimize these risks, as it enables you to sit back comfortably, freeing your arms, hands, shoulders and back altogether.

Saves you time

Need to transcribe a recording? If it's an hour long, transcribing it yourself will take you about 6! hours of work. If you send it to a transcriber - you will get it back in days! Upload it to Speechnotes - it will take you less than a minute, and you will get the results in about 20 minutes to your email.

Saves you money

Speechnotes dictation notepad is completely free - with ads - or a small fee to get it ad-free. Speechnotes transcription is only $0.1/minute, which is X10 times cheaper than a human transcriber! We offer the best deal on the market - whether it's the free dictation notepad ot the pay-as-you-go transcription service.

Dictation - Free

• Online dictation notepad
• Voice typing Chrome extension

Dictation - Premium

• Premium online dictation notepad
• Premium voice typing Chrome extension
• Support from the development team

Transcription

$0.1 /minute.

• Pay as you go - no subscription
• Audio & video recordings
• Speaker diarization in English
• Generate captions .srt files
• REST API, webhooks & Zapier integration

Compare plans

Privacy policy.

We at Speechnotes, Speechlogger, TextHear, Speechkeys value your privacy, and that's why we do not store anything you say or type or in fact any other data about you - unless it is solely needed for the purpose of your operation. We don't share it with 3rd parties, other than Google / Microsoft for the speech-to-text engine.

Privacy - how are the recordings and results handled?

- transcription service.

Our transcription service is probably the most private and secure transcription service available.

• HIPAA compliant.
• No human in the loop. No passing your recording between PCs, emails, employees, etc.
• Secure encrypted communications (https) with and between our servers.
• Recordings are automatically deleted from our servers as soon as the transcription is done.
• Our contract with Google / Microsoft (our speech engines providers) prohibits them from keeping any audio or results.
• Transcription results are securely kept on our secure database. Only you have access to them - only if you sign in (or provide your secret credentials through the API)
• You may choose to delete the transcription results - once you do - no copy remains on our servers.

- Dictation notepad & extension

For dictation, the recording & recognition - is delegated to and done by the browser (Chrome / Edge) or operating system (Android). So, we never even have access to the recorded audio, and Edge's / Chrome's / Android's (depending the one you use) privacy policy apply here.

The results of the dictation are saved locally on your machine - via the browser's / app's local storage. It never gets to our servers. So, as long as your device is private - your notes are private.

Payments method privacy

The whole payments process is delegated to PayPal / Stripe / Google Pay / Play Store / App Store and secured by these providers. We never receive any of your credit card information.

More generic notes regarding our site, cookies, analytics, ads, etc.

• We may use Google Analytics on our site - which is a generic tool to track usage statistics.
• We use cookies - which means we save data on your browser to send to our servers when needed. This is used for instance to sign you in, and then keep you signed in.
• For the dictation tool - we use your browser's local storage to store your notes, so you can access them later.
• Non premium dictation tool serves ads by Google. Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Ads Settings . Alternatively, users can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting https://youradchoices.com/
• In case you would like to upload files to Google Drive directly from Speechnotes - we'll ask for your permission to do so. We will use that permission for that purpose only - syncing your speech-notes to your Google Drive, per your request.

Text to Speech PDF: Revolutionizing How We Interact with Documents

Table of contents.

In our fast-paced digital world, the ability to convert written text into spoken words is a significant leap in technology. “Text to speech PDF” represents this transformative journey, offering a bridge between traditional reading and auditory processing. This article delves into the realm of text to speech (TTS) technology, specifically focusing on its application in reading aloud PDF files, enhancing accessibility, and streamlining learning.

Understanding Text to Speech (TTS)

Text to speech technology converts written text into spoken words. This tool has evolved significantly, offering natural-sounding voices that can read out loud documents, web pages, and PDF files. With TTS , users can listen to the content instead of reading it, aiding in multitasking and accessibility for individuals with disabilities.

Key Players and Platforms

• NaturalReader and Speechify : Popular TTS tools that offer high-quality voiceovers.
• Platforms : TTS technology is available across various platforms including Windows, Android, iOS, and Mac.

PDF Files and TTS Integration

PDF documents are a standard format for digital documentation. TTS integration allows these documents to be read aloud, transforming them into audio files that can be consumed on the go. This feature is particularly useful for users with dyslexia or visual impairments.

Compatibility with Popular PDF Readers

Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader : Leading PDF readers that support TTS functionality.

AI Voice and Customization : Modern PDF readers offer AI-generated natural-sounding voices with customization options for reading speed and voice types.

Expanding TTS Use Cases

• Educational Tools : For students, especially those with dyslexia, TTS helps in reading and comprehending complex texts.
• Workplace Efficiency : Professionals can convert lengthy docs and reports into audio for multitasking.
• Accessibility for Impairments : Individuals with visual impairments can access information in PDFs easily.
• Multilingual Support : TTS helps non-native English speakers understand content in PDFs by reading it out in their preferred language.

Platforms and Devices

• Mobile Devices : TTS apps are available on iPhone, Android, iPad, and other tablets.
• Desktop : Windows and Mac computers offer built-in TTS capabilities.
• Browsers : Extensions like Google Chrome’s TTS add-ons enhance online PDF reading.

Innovative Features in TTS for PDFs

• AI Text to Speech : Leveraging AI for more natural and context-aware voice modulation.
• Customization : Adjusting speech voices, speed, and language settings.
• Accessibility Features : Making content accessible for people with various disabilities.

Integrating TTS in Daily Life

• Epub and Audiobooks : Convert epub files and other formats into audiobooks.
• Podcasts and Voiceovers : Creating voiceovers for digital content.
• Education and Learning : Assisting in reading and comprehension for students.

Step-by-Step Guides and Tutorials

• Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Edge : Guides on activating TTS features in popular PDF readers and browsers.
• Mobile Apps : Tutorials for using TTS apps available on the App Store and Google Play.

The Future of TTS in PDF Reading

Looking ahead, TTS technology will continue to evolve, offering more natural-sounding voices, enhanced customization, and greater accessibility options. As AI advances, the integration of TTS in our daily digital interactions, especially in reading PDF documents, is set to become more seamless and intuitive.

Try Speechify PDF Reader

Cost : Free to try

Speechify’s PDF reader brings the transformative power of text-to-speech technology directly to the realm of PDF documents. This tool allows users to listen to their PDFs rather than read them, ensuring that dense, text-heavy documents are more accessible and digestible. Among its top features are:

• High-Quality Voices : Converting PDF text into clear and lifelike audio, Speechify offers a range of natural-sounding voices for a genuine listening experience.
• Text Highlighting : As Speechify reads out the content, it highlights the corresponding text in the PDF, enabling users to follow along visually and reinforcing comprehension.
• Speed Control : Catering to individual preferences, listeners can adjust the reading speed, whether they need a quick overview or a deep understanding.
• Navigation Tools : Speechify’s PDF reader allows users to effortlessly navigate through pages, jump to specific sections, and bookmark crucial parts for easy reference later on.
• Offline Access : Users can download and save PDFs within the app, facilitating offline listening and ensuring uninterrupted access to their documents, regardless of internet connectivity.
• AI Cha t: Interact with Speechify’s AI bot in your PDF reader to ask important questions about your PDF.

Overall, the Speechify PDF reader offers an innovative solution for those looking to transform the way they engage with PDF content.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the free text to speech app for pdf.

There are several free text to speech (TTS) apps available for reading PDF files. For instance, NaturalReader offers a free version that can read PDF documents aloud on various platforms including Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android. Another option is Speechify, which also has a free text to speech reader available on the App Store and Google Play. These apps typically offer features like natural-sounding voices and the ability to adjust reading speed.

What are the best text to speech PDFs?

The best text to speech PDF tools are those that offer high-quality voiceovers, customization options, and compatibility with various file formats. NaturalReader and Speechify are popular choices for their natural-sounding voices and ease of use. Adobe Reader and Microsoft Edge also provide built-in read aloud features for PDF files. For users who prioritize multitasking, these tools offer the ability to convert pdf text into audio files, enabling users to listen to documents like audiobooks.

How do I read a PDF using text to speech?

To read a PDF using text to speech:

• Choose a TTS Application : Install a text to speech app like NaturalReader or Speechify on your device.
• Open Your PDF : Use the app to open the PDF file you wish to read.
• Activate TTS Features : In the app, find the ‘read aloud’ or ‘voice reader’ option to start the TTS.
• Customization : Adjust settings like voice type, reading speed, and language as needed.
• Listen : The app will read the PDF text out loud, allowing you to listen to the content.

Why can’t I hear the text to speech on PDFs?

If you can’t hear text to speech on PDFs, consider these factors:

• Volume Settings : Ensure your device’s volume is turned up and not muted.
• TTS App Settings : Check if the TTS app’s settings are correctly configured, including the voice selection and audio output.
• File Compatibility : Verify if the PDF file format is compatible with your TTS app.
• App Updates : Ensure your text to speech app is updated to the latest version.
• Device Compatibility : Some apps may have specific requirements for iOS, Android, Windows, or Mac, so make sure your device is compatible.
• Audio Output Device : Check if your headphones or speakers are properly connected and functioning.
• Previous Text to Speech Online Free Download: Revolutionizing Communication
• Next Text to Speech Online Free Unlimited: Revolutionizing Digital Communication

Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

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Only available on iPhone and iPad

To access our catalog of 100,000+ audiobooks, you need to use an iOS device.

Coming to Android soon...

Join the waitlist

Enter your email and we will notify you as soon as Speechify Audiobooks is available for you.

You’ve been added to the waitlist. We will notify you as soon as Speechify Audiobooks is available for you.

• Export Audio

Free Text To Speech Reader

Instantly reads out loud text & pdf with natural sounding voices online - works out of the box. drop the text and click play..

Drag text or pdf files to the text-box, or directly type/paste in text. Select language and click Play. Remembers text and caret position between sessions. Works on Chrome and Safari, desktop and mobile. Enjoy listening :)

Best Text to Speech Online

• Online speech synthesizer, single click to read out loud any text
• Listen instead of reading
• Multiple languages and voices
• Reads PDF files too

TTSReader-X

• Chrome extension
• Listen to ANY website without leaving the page
• Adds a 'play' functionality to Chrome
• Clean page for readability and / or print

Try it Now for FREE

TTSReader / Android

• Podcast any written content
• Save data - works offline too

Get it on the Play store

Fun, Online, Free. Listen to great content

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Amazon's Kindle Fire - Can Now Read Websites

on June 6, 2017

Amazon’s Kindle Fire - Can Now Read Websites As TTSReader is Now Available on Amazon’s App Store Get it now for FREE Exciting news! Kindle lovers now got upgraded with some new great features. TTSReader on the Kindle can read out loud any text, pdf and website. It uses the latest algorithms to extract only the relevant text out of the usually-cluttered websites. Great for listening to Wiki articles for instance, blogs and more.

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Android Gets the Best In Class Websites Reader

Android Gets Best In Class Websites Reader - With Latest Update to TTSReader Pro Start listening now for FREE Exciting news, as Android’s TTSReader Pro app, has been updated to use TTSReaderX’s algorithms to extract only the relevant text out of websites. This is super important for a text-to-speech website reader, as otherwise the reader would start reading out loud all the ads, menus, sharing buttons and more clutter.

Commercial Licensing & Terms

on May 10, 2017

When is a Commercial License Necessary Using ttsreader.com within your institution If you are a company, or organization, using ttsreader.com, please use our paypal donate link. If you are a personal user, or an educational institute - ttsreader.com is free, no need to even donate - you are welcome, of course :). Using the generated speech for commercial purposes Recording and using the audio generated by TTSReader in a commercial application (ie publishing)

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How to Record Audio Played on PC (Speakers) for Free Need to record audio from TTSReader, YouTube or other? Here’s how in a few simple steps (includes screenshots). No need to record the speakers - you can record the audio from within the pc itself. It will be of higher audio quality - as it’s the original digital signal, clear and without ambient noise. Also, no need to purchase a software for that.

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ReaderIt is a powerful text-to-speech AI product that converts written text into high-quality, natural-sounding speech

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ReaderIt utilizes advanced AI technology to deliver high-quality and natural-sounding speech. While it strives for accuracy, minor variations may occur depending on the text and chosen voice.

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Offline Transcription provides a fast and privacy-safe way to transcribe audio, video, and podcast files. If you are looking for an app to transcribe - Minutes of meetings. - Classroom audio recording. - Create subtitles for YouTube videos. - Transcribe podcasts into text. - etc. ◼ Features: - No data leaves your Mac. Transcription happens locally without the internet. - Easy to use interface. Drag and drop + one click are all you need to do. - Supported formats: - Audio: mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, aac, and caf - Video: mov and mp4 - Exported formats: text, srt, vtt, and csv. - Transcribes multiple files at once. ◼ Supported 100 different languages The app can transcribe audio in 100 different languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Azerbaijani, Bangla, Bashkir, Basque, Belarusian, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Māori, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, Yoruba Terms of Use: https://offlinetranscription.com/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://offlinetranscription.com/privacy/

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Africa’s Youngest President Takes Office, Promising ‘Systemic Change’

Senegal’s new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, took the oath of office in Tuesday’s ceremony. Close behind him sat the popular opposition leader who had clinched the win.

By Ruth Maclean

Reporting from Diamniadio, Senegal.

Still reeling from a whirlwind campaign, young people in Senegal threw jackets over their worn election T-shirts on Tuesday to attend the inauguration of an opposition politician who went from political prisoner to president in less than three weeks.

Their new leader, Bassirou Diomaye Faye — at 44, Africa’s youngest elected president — took the oath of office promising “systemic change,” and paying homage to the many people killed, injured, and imprisoned in the yearslong lead-up to the West African country’s election.

“I will always keep in mind the heavy sacrifices made so as to never disappoint you,” Mr. Faye said, addressing a vast auditorium in which African heads of state and dignitaries sat at the front. From the back, hundreds of supporters of Mr. Faye and his powerful backer, the opposition leader Ousmane Sonko, shouted for joy.

Hours later, Mr. Faye appointed Mr. Sonko prime minister in the new government, according to a post on the president’s official account on X.

It was the culmination of months of drama, after the former president, Macky Sall, canceled the election with just weeks to go, citing irregularities at the constitutional council — and then, under intense domestic and international pressure, agreed to hold it after all.

Mr. Sall’s handpicked candidate was resoundingly beaten by Mr. Faye, a tax inspector and political rookie who got more than 54 percent of the vote, despite having only 10 days of freedom in which to campaign . He had been jailed on charges of defamation and contempt of court, and was awaiting trial when Mr. Sall announced the adoption of an amnesty law and was released.

“You’re Senegal’s uncontested and dazzling choice,” said the president of the constitutional council, Mamadou Badio Camara, presiding over the inauguration.

But Mr. Faye was not the only politician that Senegal had effectively endorsed. Mr. Sonko, the man whose support helped get Mr. Faye elected, was sitting in the second row.

“Thank you, Sonko, thank you,” yelled his supporters at key moments in Tuesday’s ceremony.

Mr. Sonko, until now Senegal’s foremost opposition leader, was also in jail until three weeks ago, barred from running for president himself after convictions on charges of defamation and “corruption of youth” in relation to accusations brought by a young massage parlor employee .

When he was released, he immediately went on the campaign trail with Mr. Faye, telling his supporters that a vote for Mr. Faye was a vote for him.

Mr. Faye made no mention in his speech of Mr. Sonko, who cut a low profile in a black hat and tunic. But Mr. Sonko was a constant presence. He hobnobbed with the African presidents who waited for the ceremony to begin in an antechamber of a conference center in Diamniadio, a new city still under construction and a pet project of Mr. Sall.

Then, in the hangar-like room where Mr. Faye would take his oath, Mr. Sonko took his place in the second row, just behind the two first ladies — wives of the polygamous new president. And Mr. Sonko got the biggest cheers of the day, every time his face appeared on the large screens at the front of the auditorium.

Much cheering also rang out for the military president of Guinea, and the representatives of Mali and Burkina Faso, three West African countries whose governments were overthrown in coups in recent years and are now ruled by juntas. The rhetoric of those juntas — focused on sovereignty from France, the former colonial power perceived by many West Africans as continuing to meddle in their affairs — mirrors that of Mr. Sonko and Mr. Faye.

“The youth of Senegal is connecting with the youth of those countries, over these issues of sovereignty,” the president’s uncle, also named Diomaye Faye, said in an interview on Tuesday.

Mr. Faye and Mr. Sonko have pledged to drop or change the terms of the CFA, the regional currency backed by France, and renegotiate Senegal’s contracts with foreign-owned companies to extract newly discovered oil and gas.

In his speech, Mr. Faye stressed that Senegal would remain open to relations with other countries that are “respectful of our sovereignty, consistent with our people’s aspirations, and in a mutually winning partnership.”

After the swearing-in, a motorcade carried him to the presidential palace. Last week, Mr. Sall had welcomed him and Mr. Sonko, his former archrivals, in a stiff but determinedly friendly meeting — official photographs of which were later given to the media.

On Tuesday, Mr. Sall, a two-term president who had served for 12 years, welcomed Mr. Faye once more, who arrived this time with a presidential guard.

After sitting chatting for a while and handing over the important documents, Mr. Sall climbed into a Toyota, pulling out of the palace gates and leaving for good.

Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, covering 25 countries including Nigeria, Congo, the countries in the Sahel region as well as Central Africa. More about Ruth Maclean

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The Arizona Supreme Court allows a near-total abortion ban to take effect soon

Katherine Davis-Young

After the Arizona Supreme Court allowed for near-total abortion ban, a group of abortion-rights protesters gathered outside the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix on April 9, 2024. Katherine Davis-Young/KJZZ hide caption

After the Arizona Supreme Court allowed for near-total abortion ban, a group of abortion-rights protesters gathered outside the Arizona state Capitol in Phoenix on April 9, 2024.

PHOENIX - Abortions will soon be outlawed in Arizona except in cases where a pregnant person's life is at risk. The state Supreme Court has ruled Arizona should follow a restrictive abortion law dating back to the 1860s.

Since Dec. 2022, Arizona doctors have been allowed to provide abortions up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy, based on a lower court's interpretation of state laws. But the state Supreme Court now says Arizona should follow a law banning abortions in almost all cases . It makes no exceptions for rape or incest and makes performing an abortion punishable by two to five years in prison.

Florida's abortion fight is headed to voters after court allows for a 6-week ban

In the ruling, justices wrote that they will stay enforcement for 14 days , possibly longer, allowing abortions to continue during that time. Planned Parenthood Arizona, the state's largest abortion provider, says it plans to continue providing abortions as long as allowed.

An effort is already underway to put a measure on 2024 ballots that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.

Democratic President Joe Biden criticized Arizona's ban in a statement, calling on Congress to pass federal abortion protections.

"Millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest," he said. "This ruling is a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women's freedom."

Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to travel to Tucson on Friday for an event focusing on "reproductive freedom." It's Harris' second trip to Arizona this year to push for expanding abortion access.

Abortion across the country

The decision comes a little more than a week after the Florida Supreme Court decided to allow that state's week's 6-week ban to take effect May 1, and a day following former President Donald Trump's announcement that abortion should be left up to the states , angering some of his supporters ahead of 2024 election.

Trump declines to back nationwide abortion ban, says it should be left to the states

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade nearly two years ago and handed abortion decisions back to states resulting in a patchwork of laws across the country.

Fourteen states ban abortion with very limited exceptions , according to the Guttmacher Institute, a group that supports abortion rights. Another 15 states protect abortion rights in various ways, according to Guttmacher.

This November, there are efforts in about a dozen states, including the one in Arizona, to add a question to voters' ballots supporting abortion rights.

Correction April 9, 2024

An earlier version of this story said that Arizona would not be able to enforce the state Supreme Court decision for 45 days. In fact, enforcement is stayed for 14 days, possibly longer.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Linguistic changes in neurodegenerative diseases relate to clinical symptoms.

• 1 Winterlight Labs, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2 Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 3 Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 4 School of Public Health Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
• 5 Ontario Brain Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 6 Department of Medicine (Neurology), University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Background: The detection and characterization of speech changes may help in the identification and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases. However, there is limited research validating the relationship between speech changes and clinical symptoms across a wide range of neurodegenerative diseases.

Method: We analyzed speech recordings from 109 patients who were diagnosed with various neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Frontotemporal Dementia, and Vascular Cognitive Impairment, in a cognitive neurology memory clinic. Speech recordings of an open-ended picture description task were processed using the Winterlight speech analysis platform which generates >500 speech features, including the acoustics of speech and linguistic properties of spoken language. We investigated the relationship between the speech features and clinical assessments including the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (DRS), Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), and Boston Naming Task (BNT) in a heterogeneous patient population.

Result: Linguistic features including lexical and syntactic features were significantly correlated with clinical assessments in patients, across diagnoses. Lower MMSE and DRS scores were associated with the use of shorter words and fewer prepositional phrases. Increased impairment on WAB and BNT was correlated with the use of fewer nouns but more pronouns. Patients also differed from healthy adults as their speech duration was significantly shorter with more pauses.

Conclusion: Linguistic changes such as the use of simpler vocabularies and syntax were detectable in patients with different neurodegenerative diseases and correlated with cognitive decline. Speech has the potential to be a sensitive measure for detecting cognitive impairments across various neurodegenerative diseases.

1 Introduction

Speech and language impairments are a prominent symptom in many neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and Vascular Dementia (VD) ( 1 – 5 ). These changes emerge along with the primary set of symptoms such as memory deficits and unusual behaviors associated with each neurodegenerative disease. There have been efforts in differentiating various dementias from healthy older populations based on speech and language assessments ( 1 , 4 , 6 – 10 ). However, many patients with dementia diagnoses exhibit comorbid conditions. The manifestation of symptoms could differ dramatically from one to another patient despite having received the same diagnosis, making characterization of disease incredibly complicated. Nevertheless, beyond the diagnosis of the patient, each neurodegenerative disease presents multiple symptoms that progress differently in each individual. Thus, understanding how speech and language changes manifest themselves in neurodegenerative diseases and how they relate to clinical symptoms can help add to the clinical picture and improve characterization of neurodegenerative disease. Here, we investigate this question by leveraging a rich, heterogeneous dataset that includes a wide range of neurodegenerative disease diagnoses.

Speech and language changes are an integral part of symptom progression in neurodegenerative diseases such as in AD. Although symptoms of typical AD concern deficits in episodic memory, executive function or reasoning, patients might also experience language impairments, specifically, in semantic abilities, verbal fluency or language comprehension ( 1 , 8 , 11 , 12 ). These language deficits manifest themselves as impairments in verbal naming, speech pauses and word finding ability ( 13 – 15 ). Atypical AD, specifically the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (PPA), is associated with impaired lexical access, naming difficulty, dysfluencies ( 16 – 19 ). Recent efforts identified a set of language changes, specifically in lexical retrieval and fluency, that differed between the logopenic variant of PPA and the typical AD although these were not related to clinical outcomes ( 20 ). Nevertheless, typical AD and the logopenic variant of PPA share certain language deficits such as production of more adverbs, fewer prepositions and nouns ( 20 ). In fact, many neurodegenerative diseases show overlapping speech and language changes, emphasizing the importance of understanding their relation to cognitive decline.

Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) encompasses distinct cognitive, social and behavioral symptoms that differ from AD, yet speech changes have also been reported across subtypes. Clinically, FTD could present itself as the behavioral variant or PPA, which could be further subdivided into fluent (semantic) and non-fluent variants ( 21 ). Patients with the non-fluent variant exhibit deficits in prosody, articulation and local coherence of speech ( 22 – 24 ). Thus, the symptoms include effortful speech, morphological or syntactic deficits, and word finding difficulty that result in simplified language ( 1 ). Semantic dementia (fluent variant), on the other hand, is characterized by decline of conceptual knowledge (i.e., semantic memory), primarily involving word comprehension ( 25 ). These patients lose the meaning of the words, mostly, nouns, but speech fluency and phonology stays relatively intact ( 26 ). As a result, patients with semantic dementia tend to produce fewer but more familiar nouns, and more adverbs than healthy adults ( 9 ). Lastly, patients with the logopenic variant of PPA, who tend to show AD pathology at autopsy, exhibit word finding difficulty, phonemic errors, and increased number of pronouns ( 16 , 19 , 22 ). In contrast to fluent and non-fluent variants of FTD, semantic memory, grammar, syntax and production of speech remain relatively unaffected in these patients ( 16 , 19 , 22 ). Lastly, speech and language change in naming, single word or discourse comprehension, and prosody in the behavioral variant of FTD although, historically, this variant was not considered to present such symptoms ( 27 – 30 ). The heterogeneity across different variants of FTD complicates the characterization of distinct speech and language differences for each disease.

Overlapping speech and language deficits across neurodegenerative diseases blur the diagnostic boundaries. Flow of speech as known as fluency could depend on the stage of the disease, in other words, the degree of cognitive decline ( 31 ). Fluency changes are common in AD although it remains unclear whether these reflect deficits in semantic knowledge, accessing or retrieving information while producing speech ( 32 , 33 ). Early onset of AD often exhibits similar speech and language deficits as mild cognitive impairment, primarily in lexico-semantic domain such as access to semantic knowledge or lexical decisions ( 12 , 34 , 35 ). Language changes including difficulty with name generation and single word comprehension in AD are also common in semantic dementia (i.e., fluent FTD). Although single word comprehension is spared in logopenic progressive aphasia, speech rate tends to be slow due to slow word retrieval and frequency pauses to find the right words ( 17 ). In fact, logopenic variant aphasia can exhibit AD pathology or progress into dementia caused by AD in later stages ( 36 , 37 ). Thus, similar speech and language changes may occur across different neurodegenerative diseases depending on the disease stage, social factors, and co-morbid condition.

Heterogeneity in and across neurogenerative diseases necessitates the development of digital speech and language biomarkers that can capture the cognitive decline and clinical symptoms, extending beyond the diagnostic categories. Literature reveals overlapping clinical symptoms and speech changes across neurogenerative diseases. For example, semantic dementia or progressive non-fluent aphasia could present different clinical symptoms, but both patient groups use significantly shorter words than healthy controls ( 9 ). However, the word length does not differ between the patients group ( 9 ). Similarly, both AD and semantic dementia (i.e., fluent FTD) may exhibit difficulty with name generation or word comprehension ( 12 , 25 , 38 ). Distinct diagnoses may share similar speech and language symptoms although the underlying pathology or affected cognitive domains may differ. Thus, understanding how speech and language changes are linked to cognitive impairment and clinical symptoms beyond the diagnosis labels is as crucial as distinguishing patients from healthy controls. As speech and language changes occur across a variety of neurodegenerative diseases, speech assessments might not be as powerful for differentiating diagnoses, but relate more to cognition, function, and clinical outcomes across diseases. This would mean that speech might be more useful for a cross-diagnosis cognitive assessment, rather than a sole diagnostic tool.

Speech and language features have the potential to be used as a screening or symptom-monitoring tool for neurodegenerative diseases. There is an added benefit of the feasibility of collecting speech samples remotely and with high frequency. We recently demonstrated the importance of high frequency speech assessments in understanding the individual symptom fluctuations relating to depression and cognitive impairment ( 30 , 39 , 40 ). In neurodegenerative diseases, there are no standardized speech and language assessments to be utilized. Thus, short, automated speech assessments which can be administered remotely and with high frequency can be powerful tools in understanding disease progressions. Machine learning and natural language processing models could be used to classify patients with dementia using speech features or differentiate them from healthy controls. Yet, the challenge is to interpret the speech and language changes in terms of the clinical symptoms. Here, our aim is to determine how speech and language changes relate to clinical outcomes in neurodegenerative diseases, beyond the diagnostic categories. Thus, we leveraged a rich, heterogenous patient sample with many neurodegenerative diseases and comorbid diagnoses and investigated the link between clinical outcomes and hundreds of speech features derived through natural language processing. Understanding how potential speech and language biomarkers relate to clinical symptoms will enable early detection or monitoring of cognitive decline at the individual level, as a way of addressing heterogeneity in neurodegenerative diseases.

2.1 Participants

The part of this study related to the patient cohort was approved by the Sunnybrook Research Ethics Board. Patients were recruited from the memory clinics at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. An informed consent discussion was conducted with all research candidates; all of these candidates agreed to participate, provided a written consent, and were successfully enrolled in the study. For our additional analyses, we also included a healthy older adult sample to compare timing related speech features to patients. The healthy control arm of this study was approved by the Advarra Research Ethics Board. Healthy controls were recruited from the community. Informed consent was collected from all participants. To be eligible for the study, participants needed to be between the ages of 50–95 and fluent English speakers (i.e., either English as their first language or they can speak with conversational proficiency). The exclusion criteria included the following: residing outside of Canada or the United States and having diagnosis of dementia, memory impairment, recent concussion or traumatic brain injury, or uncorrected hearing or visual impairment.

2.2 Clinical assessments

Patients completed a series of cognitive assessments including the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) ( 41 ), Dementia Rating Scale (DRS) ( 42 ), Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) ( 43 ), and Boston Naming Test (BNT) ( 44 ). MMSE and DRS have been administered to assess cognitive impairment in patients while WAB and BNT have been used to assess speech and language related changes. WAB is helpful in characterizing many different aspects of speech and language including fluency, comprehension, naming, reading and writing. BNT is mostly used to assess retrieval of lexical information while naming an object. WAB and BNT were used to validate our speech features and determine how they relate to specific speech changes. On the other hand, MMSE and DRS were used to assess the cognitive decline and its relationship to speech and language changes detected with our extensive features.

2.3 Acoustic and linguistic speech features

Patients’ speech recordings were collected in the clinic while they were performing a picture description task as part of WAB. The picture that participants described was a line drawing of a picnic scene. Healthy controls completed the picture description task as well, but using an app-based interface and a picture of a family in the kitchen scene. The recordings from healthy controls were collected with the Winterlight Speech App. Because of the significant differences between the 2 stimuli, we only analyzed the timing related speech features for the comparison between the patients and healthy controls since linguistic differences of spoken language could relate to the different picture content.

The patients’ speech recordings were transferred to the Ontario Brain Institute’s “Brain-CODE” informatics platform 1 for processing and analysis. “Brain-CODE” was designed to support the collection, integration, sharing, and analysis of patient-level data, while abiding by ethical principles and government legislation ( 45 ).

First, a trained transcriptionist transcribed and labeled the speech samples, ensuring the quality of audio content and flagged any recordings with significant issues for removal, such as no audible speech or poor audio quality. Although speech recordings were transcribed for quality purposes, the analyses are based on the recorded spoken speech. To make the distinction between speech and language, here acoustics refer to the auditory features of speech while the linguistics relates to the spoken language. Speech samples were then passed through the Winterlight Lab processing pipeline, which relies on python-based language processing libraries and proprietary custom code. Open source packages include SpaCy for parts-of-speech tagging and morphological features ( 46 ), the Stanford NLP parser for syntactic features ( 47 ), Praat and Parselmouth for acoustic features ( 48 , 49 ), and GloVe and FastText models for semantic features ( 50 , 51 ). The pipeline also uses custom code to compute additional features based on the transcript and audio file, using lexical norms from previous publications ( 52 – 55 ) or previously published models and features ( 56 ).

The Winterlight Lab processing pipeline enables us to extract 707 speech features from the audio files and transcripts. These features reflect various aspects of speech: acoustics (e.g., properties of the sound wave, speech rate, number of pauses), lexical content (e.g., rates and types of words used, and their characteristics such as frequency and imageability, which reflect how commonly words are used and how easy they are to picture, respectively), semantics (relating to the meaning of the words, e.g., semantic relatedness of subsequent utterances, semantic relatedness of utterances to the items in the picture) and syntactic (relating to the grammar of the sentences, e.g., syntactic complexity, use of different syntactic constructions) properties of the recordings. While it is not possible to review each feature in detail, we provide more detailed definitions for some of the features of interest in this paper. For instance, average word length and noun or pronoun count fall under the lexical category. Average word length represents the mean number of letters in each word used to describe the picture. Noun and pronoun count are calculated based on the number of nouns or pronouns in a transcript divided by the number of words, respectively. Lexical features also include noun familiarity and frequency, which represent the mean familiarity or frequency of the nouns in the transcript, based on familiarity or frequency norms, respectively ( 52 , 54 ). In other words, familiarity is a subjective rating of how common the word is, and frequency is how often it appears in a standard corpus of speech. Prepositional phrase count, as an example of syntactic features, is the number of times the phrase occurs in a transcript. Timing related features include mean speech or pause duration. Speech duration is the total number of seconds that participants take to describe the picture while pause duration is calculated by dividing the duration of unvoiced segments of speech by the total number of unvoiced segments. An overview of the feature categories, definitions, numbers, and examples is provided in Table 1 .

Table 1 . Speech feature overview, definitions, numbers, and examples.

2.4 Statistical analyses

All analyses were completed on R statistical software, version 4.1.2 ( 57 ). We eliminated the speech features that had empty values for at least 20% of participants. 80% of the features eliminated fell under morphological or syntactic speech categories. Specifically, a total of 146 morphological and 94 syntactic speech features had empty values, because of a combination of adverb and prepositional phrases that did not occur in all transcripts, and thus were eliminated from the analyses. Some of the remaining 62 speech features eliminated were related to tags for specific words, for instance, the words with a hyphen (e.g., t-shirt) in them. Most of the remaining speech categories in Table 1 were not affected from this cleaning process, yielding 405 features in total.

We fit separate linear mixed effects models to each speech feature to investigate their unique relationship with the clinical assessments, with covariates of age, sex, and years of education. These analyses were done separately for each of the cognitive assessments; MMSE, DRS, BNT and WAB. Statistical significance was set to an alpha level equal to 0.0001 taking multiple comparisons into consideration through Bonferroni correction (0.05/405 features). Using a series of analysis of variances (ANOVAs), we have compared different diagnoses in terms of the speech feature that we identified in the above analyses. However, these analyses did not yield significant results due to small sample size in each diagnosis.

Lastly, we included a healthy control dataset to be able to compare the speech changes in patients. We only included the timing related features for this comparison. As mentioned above, acoustic and linguistic features might not be appropriate for the comparison because the healthy older adults described a different picture, and recordings were obtained using different devices (digital vs. analog) and recording conditions. We used a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to reduce the dimensionality of the feature set and distinguish the patients from healthy controls based on the resulting composite variables. This was used as an exploratory cluster analysis. We focused on the first few principal components, that, when combined, were able to explain at least 80% variance. Although there is no straight forward way to determine the number of principal components to retain, the first few components are expected to explain at least 75% of variance or even less in some situations ( 58 – 60 ).

3.1 Demographics

This study included 109 patients (52 females, 57 males) with an age range of 51–91 (M = 72.63 ± 8.61). Patient diagnoses included AD, FTD and Vascular dementia. The largest subset of patients was those diagnosed with AD and familial AD, consisting of 34 patients ( Supplementary Table S1 ). All patients completed MMSE, DRS, WAB and BNT as well as the picture description task as part of WAB ( Table 2 ). We also included 74 healthy controls (39 females) with mean age 61.31 ± 7.29. Healthy controls only completed the picture description task, but no additional clinical assessments reported here.

Table 2 . Patient demographics.

3.2 MMSE and DRS relate to linguistic features

We investigated the relationship of clinical scores on MMSE and DRS to acoustic and linguistic speech features. We conducted separate linear mixed effects models for each speech feature and repeated the analyses for MMSE and DRS separately. We observed that of all the features, average word length was significantly associated with MMSE, R 2  = 0.14, F (4, 103) = 5.46, β  = 0.01, p  = 0.001, 95% CI [0.005, 0.02], and DRS total scores, R 2  = 0.20, F (4, 100) = 7.35, β  = 0.005, p  = 5.82E-05, 95% CI [0.003, 0.008] ( Figures 1A , B ). Similarly, prepositional phrase count was also significantly correlated with MMSE, R 2  = 0.14, F (4, 103) = 5.53, β  = 0.002, p  = 0.0001, 95% CI [0.001, 0.003], and DRS total scores, R 2  = 0.13, F (4, 100) = 5.03, β  = 0.0007, p  = 0.0002, 95% CI [0.0003, 0.001] ( Figures 1C , D ). All of these results remained significant following Bonferroni correction.

Figure 1 . Clinical impairment measured with MMSE and DRS is correlated with average word length and prepositional phrase usage. (A) Lower MMSE and (B) DRS scores are associated with shorter word length. (C) Lower MMSE and (D) DRS are also correlated with use of fewer prepositional phrases.

Additional results included that the use of familiar nouns was inversely associated with MMSE, R 2  = 0.14, F (4, 103) = 5.20, β  = −1.60, p  = 0.0001, 95% CI [−2.40, −0.80], and DRS total scores, R 2  = 0.14, F (4, 100) = 5.42, β  = −0.51, p  = 0.0001, 95% CI [−0.76, −0.26]. Similarly, using frequent nouns were negatively correlated with MMSE, R 2  = 0.14, F(4, 103) = 5.29, β  = −0.02, p  = 0.00005, 95% CI [−0.03, −0.01], and DRS total scores, R 2  = 0.12, F (4, 100) = 4.21, β  = −0.006, p  = 0.0005, 95% CI [−0.01, −0.003].

3.3 WAB and BNT relate to linguistic features

We investigated the relationship of language deficits reported on WAB and BNT to acoustic and linguistic speech features. We conducted separate linear mixed effects models for each speech feature and repeated the analyses for WAB and BNT separately. We observed that noun count was significantly associated with WAB, R 2  = 0.16, F (4, 104) = 6.13, β  = 0.001, p  = 0.0002, 95% CI [0.0007, 0.002], and BNT total scores, R 2  = 0.24, F (4, 98) = 8.95, β  = 0.005, p  = 1.25E-06, 95% CI [0.002, 0.005] ( Figures 2A , B ). On the contrary, pronoun count was negatively correlated with WAB, R 2  = 0.09, F (4, 104) = 3.63, β  = −0.001, p  = 0.002, 95% CI [−0.002, −0.0005], and BNT total scores, R 2  = 0.11, F (4, 98) = 4.25, β  = −0.003, p  = 0.0003, 95% CI [−0.004, −0.001] ( Figures 2C , D ).

Figure 2 . Impairment in language (WAB) and semantic processing (BNT) is associated with the amount of noun and pronoun usage. (A) Lower WAB total and (B) BNT scores are correlated with reduced noun usage. Conversely, (C) lower WAB total and (D) BNT scores relate to higher pronoun usage.

3.4 Timing features distinguish patients from healthy older adults

Principal component analysis based on timing related features, including duration of speech and pauses, differentiated patients from healthy older adults ( Figure 3A ). The first two principal components explained more than 80% of the variance within the data ( Figure 3A ). Mean pause and total speech duration had two of the highest loadings and were used to show the differences between the patients and healthy controls. According to the student t-test, patients (M = 0.59, SD = 0.16) produced significantly shorter speech than the healthy controls (M = 0.79, SD = 0.12), t (180.41) = −9.63, p  = 2.2E-16 ( Figure 3B ). On the other hand, patients (M = 0.95, SD = 0.49) paused significantly more than the healthy controls (M = 0.75, SD = 0.37), t (182.05) = −3.36, p  = 0.001 ( Figure 3C ).

Figure 3 . Timing related speech features distinguish patients with neurodegenerative diseases from healthy older adults. (A) First 2 principal components based on timing features distinguish patients from healthy controls. Patients produced significantly (B) shorter speech durations but (C) longer pauses than healthy controls.

4 Discussion

This study reports that clinical symptoms in a wide range of neurodegenerative diseases are linked to digital linguistic speech features. Many of the speech and language changes that distinguish patients from the healthy older adults might be overlapping between different neurodegenerative diseases ( 1 ). We leveraged a rich and heterogeneous patient sample with many diagnostic labels to investigate how digital speech measures relate to cognitive impairment as well as the linguistic deficits measured with traditional assessments. We show that patients with neurodegenerative diseases tend to use simpler vocabulary and syntax; shorter words and fewer prepositional phrases, reflecting cognitive impairment. They utilize fewer nouns and mostly those that are familiar or frequently used in everyday life. In fact, there appears to be a tradeoff between reduced nouns and increased pronouns, which could result in less specific language. While a healthy older adult might describe a picnic scene as “A lady is sitting on the grass and pouring a beverage next to a gentleman by the lake,” a patient with dementia might only say “She is sitting and pouring something. There is a man.” Building on our previous work looking at longitudinal linguistic changes in AD and FTD ( 30 , 40 ), the link between linguistic changes and cognition across diagnoses highlights the importance of these language properties beyond the neurodegenerative disease categories.

Our results revealed that the cognitive impairment measured with MMSE and DRS was correlated with use of shorter words on average. Shorter word length is reported in many neurodegenerative diseases including AD, semantic dementia, progressive non-fluent aphasia, behavioral variant of FTD ( 9 , 40 , 61 , 62 ). Those with semantic dementia and progressive nonfluent aphasia, for example, may differ from healthy controls in terms of word length, yet the 2 patient groups were not previously found to differ from each other ( 9 ). Thus, it is necessary to understand how word length is linked to cognitive impairment in addition to distinguishing patients from healthy controls. Our analyses on a heterogenous patient sample revealed a link between word length and cognitive impairment, suggesting the relationship is beyond the diagnostic labels. This is in line with recent findings that shorter word usage in typical AD and the logopenic variant of PPA is correlated with MMSE and BNT ( 20 ). Patients with different neurodegenerative diseases may exhibit common linguistic changes, possibly emerging from different underlying deficits. Change in word length might arise from top-down lexical and semantic processing. Unavailability of long, sophisticated words might also result in word finding difficulty, which is commonly reported across diseases ( 1 , 19 , 22 ).

Since the earlier work, naming difficulty has been linked to word frequency and familiarity in dementia ( 63 , 64 ). Noun frequency and familiarity are two related linguistic features reflecting vocabulary complexity, and have been previously shown to be impacted in semantic dementia and, more generally, in FTD ( 30 , 65 ). These features could even distinguish semantic dementia from healthy controls and patients with progressive non-fluent aphasia ( 9 ). Besides FTD, we report the involvement of noun frequency and familiarity across many neurodegenerative diseases. These linguistic features are also closely linked to cognitive impairment on MMSE and DRS. Similarly, noun frequency in conversation was recently reported to be implicated in AD ( 66 ). However, the frequency was reported to decrease with age, suggesting increased use of more rare or complex words with increased age ( 66 ). It was speculated that the frequency measure could vary with education ( 66 , 67 ). Thus, the varying sensitivity of linguistic features also adds to the heterogeneity in dementia. This emphasizes the importance of understanding the link between linguistic changes and cognitive impairment, not specifically at the diagnostic level, but at the individual level.

Syntactic properties might be less sensitive to dementia than lexical features such as word length or noun frequency ( 68 ). We report that patients use fewer prepositional phrases – a syntactic feature - as cognitive impairment increases. Overall, prepositional phrases are relatively less studied, but they could be contributing to fragmented sentences in neurodegenerative diseases ( 68 , 69 ) or a reduced ability to form connections between concepts. Typical AD and the logopenic variant of PPA produce fewer prepositions than healthy controls ( 20 ). Similarly, patients with FTD use fewer and fewer prepositional phrases over time ( 30 ). Prepositional phrases in AD were associated with performance on BNT, relating to the difficulty in efficiently retrieving semantic information ( 20 ). Interestingly, while prepositional phrase count was related to MMSE and DRS scores in our study, we identified distinct linguistic features relating to traditional language assessments such as BNT and WAB.

With increased deficits on WAB and BNT, we observed decreased use of nouns but increased number of pronouns in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. Linguistic impairments measured with WAB were associated with the severity of dementia across diagnoses such as behavioral variant of FTD, primary progressive aphasia and AD ( 70 ). Patients with typical AD or the logopenic variant of PPA produce fewer nouns ( 20 ), and the use of nouns in AD and FTD decreases over time ( 30 , 40 ). Semantic dementia also presents with decreased noun use, specifically in connected speech ( 9 ). Supporting these findings, we showed that decreased noun use along with increased pronouns across neurodegenerative diseases was associated with language deficits measured with WAB and BNT. This might indicate semantic deficits ( 65 ), which might extend to other neurodegenerative diseases beyond semantic dementia as our results suggest. Indeed, BNT relies heavily on semantic memory ( 71 ) and is thus more correlated with category fluency such as knowledge of words rather than the rhyming of words or verbal fluency ( 32 , 33 ). This could be why BNT performance is linked to nouns and pronouns across diseases in the current study as these features are capturing more of the semantic processing.

Characteristics of speech production such as rate and timing are also affected in neurodegenerative diseases. Our results show that patients produced significantly shorter speech and more pauses in speech than the healthy older adults. This might indirectly be an indication of lexico-semantic deficits in these patients and relate to our findings discussed above. Patients with dementia produced shorter speech recordings than healthy controls ( 20 , 72 ). Similarly, those with logopenic variants of PPA or AD pause more or longer ( 14 , 17 , 20 , 73 ). Increased pauses are observable in MCI and early AD as well ( 74 ). Between-utterance pauses were also shown to differ between AD and MCI, and was related to episodic memory performance, suggesting its importance in early detection of symptoms ( 14 ). Supporting this, we provided evidence that timing features distinguished healthy controls from the heterogenous patient sample that included more than 10 different diagnoses and various comorbid conditions. Yet, we did not observe any associations between number of pauses and MMSE or DRS. This might suggest that timing of speech could be involved in specific cognitive domains rather than overall cognitive decline. This emphasizes the importance of understanding how each speech and language change is linked to a particular clinical outcome beyond the clinical diagnoses, which could be the key in unpacking the heterogeneity and comorbidity seen in neurodegenerative diseases.

We were not able to distinguish the linguistic differences between the diagnostic groups due to small sample size in each group. Although many neurodegenerative diseases show a great overlap in terms of speech changes, future research should investigate the relationship between linguistic speech changes and various clinical outcomes in each disease population separately. These identified language features here can be the first step in understanding how linguistic changes manifest themselves as cognitive impairment progresses in each disease. In addition to linguistic changes, acoustic aspects of speech have recently been part of the efforts in capturing speech changes in neurodegenerative diseases. We generated a wide range of acoustic features including but not limited to the power spectrum of speech signals, speech intensity, and jitter. Yet, acoustic features were not significantly correlated with clinical scores. The speech recordings were collected during clinical interviews on relatively older devices and on a platform other than the Winterlight App. Future research should investigate the acoustic features in high quality speech samples collected with more up-to-date devices.

This study identified several linguistic features that are linked to cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative diseases. It suggested that certain linguistic features may relate to cognition more generally, others to language abilities while timing related features were best suited for broadly distinguishing patients and healthy controls. In particular, it could be that word length and prepositions relate more to cognitive abilities in general, nouns and pronouns relate more specifically to language abilities and speech duration/pausing distinguishes controls from patients. Although these results alone are not enough to make a strong argument, future research should explore this idea that perhaps we could use one assessment to derive different features to inform on different aspects of cognition/language. Gold standard assessments for cognitive impairment can be laborious to conduct as they require expertise and time. Speech assessments, on the other hand, are automated, fast and could be administered in addition to the existing clinical assessments. Nevertheless, many neurodegenerative diseases including various variants of AD and FTD present overlapping speech and language changes ( 1 ). There have been efforts in understanding disease specific changes, yet individual differences make this investigation complicated. Each patients’ medical history, severity level, lifestyle, and cognitive resource might be contributing to their phenotype in different ways. A recent review suggests that neurodegenerative diseases should be considered as a multi-faceted condition that involves biology, psychology and social levels to explain the resulting digital phenotypes ( 75 ). We can get one step closer to a more objective understanding of cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases through development of digital linguistic biomarkers that link to specific cognitive deficits.

Data availability statement

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.

Ethics statement

The studies involving humans were approved by 1. Sunnybrook Research Ethics Board or 2. Advarra Research Ethics Board. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author contributions

MG: Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. MK: Data curation, Writing – review & editing. CMS: Resources, Writing – review & editing. AB: Project administration, Writing – review & editing. JR: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. SEB: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was conducted with the support of the Ontario Brain Institute, an independent non-profit corporation, funded partially by the Ontario government. This study was also supported by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Grants (MOP13129 and FDN159910) awarded to SEB.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Ontario Brain Institute for providing access to Brain-CODE, a secure neuroinformatics platform, which was used for the data storage, data sharing and analysis workspace.

Conflict of interest

MG and JR were employed by Winterlight Labs that is part of Cambridge Cognition.

The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fneur.2024.1373341/full#supplementary-material

1. ^ www.braincode.ca

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Keywords: speech, linguistic, neurodegenerative diseases, digital health, clinical symptoms

Citation: Gumus M, Koo M, Studzinski CM, Bhan A, Robin J and Black SE (2024) Linguistic changes in neurodegenerative diseases relate to clinical symptoms. Front. Neurol . 15:1373341. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1373341

Received: 19 January 2024; Accepted: 07 March 2024; Published: 25 March 2024.

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Copyright © 2024 Gumus, Koo, Studzinski, Bhan, Robin and Black. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Melisa Gumus, [email protected]

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