''Automatik Text Reader'' was a free and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

add-on for

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements curr ...

providing

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conv ...

functions available from the

Mozilla Add-ons For Mozilla software, an add-on is a software component that extends the functionality of the Firefox web browser and related applications although most are browser extensions. Mozilla provides add-ons to users via its official add-on website. I ...

collection. It supports multiple languages and accents and is capable of autonomously recognizing the language of written text and activating the respective speech synthesis engine. Amongst the peculiar features, the voice speed is adjustable and the text selection is automatic. In addition to the unique features users will find that the interface is very simple to use; having only 4 buttons to operate it.

Supported languages

Automatik Text Reader has support for English,

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

, French,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

. The quality of the synthesis varies significantly between the languages, with English being the smoothest, most natural-sounding voice.

Limitations

Being a Firefox add-on, Automatik Text Reader requires Firefox to run and cannot be installed standalone. Also, for very short texts composed of three words or less, the language detector may fail to recognize the correct language.

References

{{Speech synthesis Speech synthesis software Free speech synthesis software Free Firefox legacy extensions