Top Rated Online Text Reader For Mac
Every Mac is built with assistive technologies to support people who are blind or have low vision. The VoiceOver screen reader describes exactly what’s happening on your screen. Zoom gives you a powerful built-in magnifier. And display adjustments help to meet your specific vision needs.
VoiceOverHear what’s happening on your screen.
Natural Reader is a free text to speech tool that can be used in a couple of ways. The first option is to load documents into its library and have them read aloud from there. VozMe is an online text to speech program that lets you type-in any English, Spanish, Italian, Hindi, or Portuguese text and then play it as an audio stream. WordTalk A free Windows text to speech plugin for Microsoft Word, WordTalk will speak the text of the document and will highlight it as it goes.
VoiceOver does more than tell you what’s happening on your Mac. It helps you make things happen. It gives you auditory descriptions of each onscreen element and provides helpful hints along the way — whether you prefer using gestures, a keyboard, or a braille display. And it supports more than 35 languages, including multiple voice options.
VoiceOverIntegrated throughout macOS and every built-in app.
VoiceOver is unique because it’s not a standalone screen reader. It’s deeply integrated in macOS and all the built-in apps on Mac. And as developers update their apps to take advantage of the accessibility interfaces provided by Apple, their apps can start working with VoiceOver right away.
If all you need is a text to speech solution that can handle reading out aloud of PDF files occasionally, Adobe Acrobat Reader fits the bill perfectly. Thanks to its “ Read Out Loud ” feature, PDF files can be read either on a per page basis, or in their entirety. NaturalReader Online is a text to speech web application with high quality premium voices for personal use only. Login from any computer to convert any written text such as MS Word, PDF files, non-DRM eBooks, and webpages into spoken natural sounding speech. As you might’ve guessed by now, that’s what this article is focused on. So let’s jump in, and take a look at 9 of the best text to speech (TTS) software. NaturalReader supports a diverse array of (textual) file types from which it can read aloud textual content;. Natural Reader is a free text to speech tool that can be used in a couple of ways. The first option is to load documents into its library and have them read aloud from there. Best E-Book Readers for 2018. Our editors hand-picked these products based on our tests and reviews. If you use our links to buy, we may get a commission.
VoiceOverImproved PDF, web, and messages navigation.
We’ve refined VoiceOver to make it easier to navigate PDFs, websites, and messages. In Safari, improved conformance with HTML5 accessibility standards allows for more consistent navigation of websites. VoiceOver is now better at reading aloud tagged PDFs and email messages. If you start reading a website in a different language, VoiceOver can switch to the voice for that language automatically.¹ And you can add custom commands and workflows to your MacBook Pro with Touch Bar.
Audio DescriptionsHear the details in every scene.
Watch movies with detailed audio descriptions of every scene on your Mac. Movies with audio descriptions are displayed with the AD icon in the iTunes Store.
VoiceOverNavigate VoiceOver with simple gestures.
You can control VoiceOver using many of the same gestures you use with iOS. Touch the trackpad to hear a description of the item under your finger, drag to hear items continuously, and flick to move to the next item. Enable the VoiceOver Trackpad Commander, and the trackpad surface will represent the current window or document, so you can navigate quickly to any corner or edge with a tap.
VoiceOverA virtual controller with customizable commands.
VoiceOver features a virtual control called the rotor. Turning the rotor — by rotating two fingers on the trackpad as if you were turning an actual dial — lets you access an array of fully customizable commands. Use it to browse web pages more efficiently and intuitively. The rotor lists common elements like “headings,” “links,” and “images,” and lets you navigate directly to the element of your choosing.
VoiceOverPlug-and-play support for braille displays.
VoiceOver is the first screen reader to provide plug-and-play support for refreshable braille displays. Plug in or sync one of over 100 compatible displays, and the VoiceOver description is presented to you in braille. In macOS High Sierra, you can edit seamlessly in Grade 2 Braille, viewing your edits in the context of the actual line of text. Converting between braille and text happens automatically so you see only Grade 2 Braille. VoiceOver is also the only screen reader that supports more than one braille display at a time. So in a meeting or class, you can present what’s on your screen to multiple braille users simultaneously. And for sighted users who sit alongside you, there’s an onscreen braille panel that displays both braille and plain-text versions of the descriptions spoken by VoiceOver.
Dark ModeWorking hard gets easier on the eyes.
Dark Mode transforms the desktop and built-in apps with a new dark color scheme that helps you focus on your work.2 The fine points of your content take center screen as toolbars and menus recede into the background. Light text against darker backdrops in Mail, Safari Reader, Calendar, and more makes everything easier to read in low lighting conditions. And the Accessibility preferences for increased contrast and reduced transparency work with Dark Mode enabled.
DictationYou say it. Mac types it.
Dictation lets you talk where you would type — and it works in over 40 languages. So you can reply to an email, search the web, or write a report using just your voice. Navigate to any text field, activate Dictation, then say what you want to write. macOS also comes with more than 50 editing and formatting commands. So you can turn on Dictation and tell your Mac to bold a paragraph, delete a sentence, or replace a word. You can also use Automator workflows to create your own Dictation commands.
SiriStreamline the things you do every day.
Siri helps you do more with your desktop.³ Ask Siri to send messages, track down files, create reminders, search the web, and even turn on and off VoiceOver and Invert Colors, without interrupting what you’re doing on the keyboard. And because Siri is integrated with VoiceOver, you can ask it to find a file and hear the answer read out loud. If you prefer to communicate by typing, you can easily set Siri to “Type to Siri” mode.
ZoomMake your screen up to 20 times bigger.
Zoom is a powerful built-in magnifier that lets you enlarge your screen up to 20 times, so you can better see what’s on the display. Set up a shortcut for quickly zooming in and out by selecting “Use scroll gesture with modifier keys to zoom” in the Zoom pane of Accessibility in System Preferences. You can zoom using full screen or picture-in-picture, allowing you to see the zoomed area in a separate window while keeping the rest of the screen at its native size. A shortcut key lets you pan the screen without moving the pointer while zoomed in. macOS can also flash the screen for notifications offscreen or speak text under your pointer. The hardware acceleration engine lets you boost the size of everything on your screen — text on a web page, family photos, a place on a map.
Cursor SizeMagnify your cursor so it’s easier to use.
macOS lets you magnify your cursor so it’s easier to see where you are and follow along as you move around your Mac. Set the cursor size once and it stays magnified even when its shape changes. And when you swipe back and forth on your trackpad or quickly shake your mouse, the pointer grows so it’s easier to locate.
Contrast OptionsInvert colors or enable grayscale.
If a higher contrast or a lack of color helps you better see what’s on your display, macOS lets you invert colors or enable grayscale onscreen. Once you set your preferences, they apply systemwide, so you get the same view in every app. You can also turn on Increase Contrast to enhance definition and reduce transparency in some apps.
Reduce MotionDecrease the movement of onscreen elements.
If you’re affected by the motion of screen elements, you can turn on Reduce Motion to decrease movement in areas like Spaces, Notification Center, and the Dock.
iTunesNavigate and play content with VoiceOver.
iTunes is compatible with VoiceOver, so you can navigate and play all the content in your iTunes library even if you can’t see the screen. Browse the iTunes Store as VoiceOver reads out headers, links, and other elements on the page.
Resources
Support
User Guides
Mac Reader For Windows 10
Or order an embossed copy of macOS VoiceOver User Guide
External Resources
Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Explore instructional videos with tips on using vision accessibility features in macOS.
Learn more about the Hadley Institute instructional videos at their websiteJoin a community of blind and low-vision users of Apple products.
Learn more about AppleVis.com at their websiteGet information on the use of Apple products by those who are blind or low vision.
Learn more about Mac-cessibility Network at their websiteFind Free Books
Tech To Make Life Easier
Connect To Entertainment
Fix It Yourself
Ever thought of creating a library with thousands of free books? You'd never have to spend a dime. It sounds impossible, but it's not! Free books, on nearly any subject you can think of, are all over the internet, ready to be downloaded, read, and shared. All you need to do is speed up your reading so you have enough time to get through all of them!
A huge quantity of books previously unavailable to the public were released starting in 2019 to the public domain, thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. Because of an amendment to that act, works published between 1923 and 1977 can enter the public domain 95 years after their creation.
Many of the sites listed in this article can get you access to the tens of thousands of books (and movies, songs, and cartoons) available under this act. Downloads should be free and without retribution under U.S. copyright law. Keep an eye on your favorite sites; they will update regularly with these now legal-to-download books.
Here are the top 20 sites where you can find and download a wide variety of completely free books online, anything from romance novels to computer technology manuals.
Read Print
What we like
Easy to search
Free account grants access to the community and a personal page with a virtual 'bookshelf'
Comprehensive quotation database
Offers lots of ways to find free books
What we don't like
Only has classic books and those with Creative Commons licenses
No way to download free books directly from the site
The site can be slow and/or unresponsive
Read Print is an online library where you can find thousands of free books to read. The books are classics or Creative Commons licensed and include nonfiction, essays, fiction, plays, and poetry.
Free registration at Read Print gives you the ability to track what you've read and what you would like to read, write reviews of books you've read, add books to your favorites, and to join online book clubs or discussion lists.
You can access the books on Read Print without joining, but you won't have access to the other features mentioned above.
Finding Free Books On Read Print's Website
There are several ways you can find what you're looking for at Read Print:
- A keyword search for book titles, authors, or quotes.
- Search by type of work published (i.e., essays, fiction, non-fiction, plays, etc.)
- View the top books to read online as per the Read Print community.
- Browse the alphabetical author index.
- Check out the top 250 most famous authors on Read Print.
For example, if you're looking for books by William Shakespeare, a simple search will turn up all his works in a single location.
Reading Books at Read Print
Once you've found a book you're interested in, click Read Online and the book will open within your web browser. You also have the option to Launch Reading Mode if you're not fond of the website interface. Reading Mode looks like an open book, however, all the free books on the Read Print site are divided by chapter, so you'll have to go back and open it every time you start a new chapter.
If you find a book you really like and you'd like to download it to your mobile e-reader, phone, or tablet, Read Print provides links to Amazon, where you can download a title for free if you're a member of Amazon Kindle Unlimited.
ManyBooks
What we like
Selection includes more than just classics and Creative Commons books
Great categorization makes finding what you love easier
The blog offers book suggestions
What we don't like
Some functionality may not be available on the new site
Some areas haven't been updated in more than a year
ManyBooks is one of the best resources on the web for free books in a variety of download formats. There are hundreds of books available here, in all sorts of interesting genres, and all of them are completely free. One of the best features of this site is that not all of the books listed here are classic or creative commons books.
Finding Free Books on Many Books
ManyBooks is in transition at the time of this writing. A beta test version of the site is available that features a serviceable search capability. Readers can also find books by browsing genres, popular selections, author, and editor's choice. Plus, ManyBooks has put together collections of books that are an interesting way to explore topics in a more organized way.
In addition to these basic search options, you can also use ManyBooks Advanced Search to pinpoint exactly what you're looking for. There's also the ManyBooks RSS feeds that can keep you up to date on a variety of new content, including: All New Titles By Language.
Reading Books at ManyBooks
All of the free books at ManyBooks are downloadable — some directly from the ManyBooks site, some from other websites (such as Amazon). When you register for the site you're asked to choose your favorite format for books, however, you're not limited to the format you choose. When you find a book you want to read, you can select the format you prefer to download from a drop down menu of dozens of different file formats.
The Literature Network
The Literature Network: This site is organized alphabetically by author. Click on any author's name, and you'll see a biography, related links and articles, quizzes, and forums. Most of the books here are free, but there are some downloads that require a small fee.
Text Reader For Mac
Free Computer Books
Free Computer Books: Every computer subject and programming language you can think of is represented here. Free books and textbooks, as well as extensive lecture notes, are available.
Librivox
Librivox.org is a dream come true for audiobook lovers. All the books here are absolutely free, which is good news for those of us who have had to pony up ridiculously high fees for substandard audiobooks.
Free Text Reader For Mac
Librivox has many volunteers that work to release quality recordings of classic books, all free for anyone to download. If you've been looking for a great place to find free audio books, Librivox is a good place to start.
Authorama
Authorama.com features a nice selection of free books written in HTML and XHTML, which basically means that they are in easily readable format. Most books here are featured in English, but there are quite a few German language texts as well. Books are organized alphabetically by the author’s last name. Authorama offers a good selection of free books from a variety of authors, both current and classic.
Authorama offers up a good selection of high-quality, free books that you can read right in your browser or print out for later. These are books in the public domain, which means that they are freely accessible and allowed to be distributed; in other words, you don't need to worry if you're looking at something illegal here.
How Do I find Free Books to Read Here?
Authorama is a very simple site to use. You can scroll down the list of alphabetically arranged authors on the front page, or check out the list of Latest Additions at the top.
Once you find something you're interested in, click on the book title and you'll be taken to that book's specific page. You can choose to read chapters within your browser (easiest) or print pages out for later.
Why Should I Use Authorama?
If you're looking for an easy to use source of free books online, Authorama definitely fits the bill. All of the books offered here are classic, well-written literature, easy to find and simple to read.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is one of the largest sources for free books on the web, with over 30,000 downloadable free books available in a wide variety of formats.
Project Gutenberg is the oldest (and quite possibly the largest) library on the web, with literally hundreds of thousands free books available for download. The vast majority of books at Project Gutenberg are released in English, but there are other languages available.
If you already know what you are looking for, search the database by author name, title, language, or subjects. You can also check out the top 100 list to see what other people have been downloading.
International Digital Children's Library
International Digital Children's Library: Browse through a wide selection of high quality free books for children here. Check out Simple Search to get a big picture of how this library is organized: by age, reading level, length of book, genres, and more.
eBooks and Text Archives
Ebooks and Text Archives: From the Internet Archive; a library of fiction, popular books, children's books, historical texts and academic books. The free books on this site span every possible interest.
Questia Public Library
Questia Public Library has long been a favorite choice of librarians and scholars for research help. They also offer a world-class library of free books filled with classics, rarities, and textbooks.
More than 5,000 free books are available for download here, alphabetized both by title and by author.
Wikisource
Wikisource: Online library of user-submitted and maintained content. While you won't technically find free books on this site, at the time of this writing, over 200,000 pieces of content are available to read.
Wikibooks
Wikibooks is an open collection of (mostly) textbooks. Subjects range from Computing to Languages to Science; you can see all that Wikibooks has to offer in Books by Subject.
Best Pdf Reader For Mac
Be sure to check out the Featured Books section, which highlights free books that the Wikibooks community at large believes to be “the best of what Wikibooks has to offer, and should inspire people to improve the quality of other books.”
Bibliomania
Bibliomania: Bibliomania gives readers over 2,000 free classics, including literature book notes, author bios, book summaries, and study guides. Free books are presented in chapter format.
The Open Library
The Open Library: There are over one million free books here, all available in PDF, ePub, Daisy, DjVu and ASCII text.
You can search for ebooks specifically by checking the Show only ebooks option under the main search box. Once you've found an ebook, you will see it available in a variety of formats.
Sacred Texts
Sacred Texts contains the web’s largest collection of free books about religion, mythology, folklore and the esoteric in general.
SlideShare
Another site that isn't strictly for free books, Slideshare does offer a large amount of free content for you to read. It is an online forum where anyone can upload a digital presentation on any subject.
Millions of people utilize SlideShare for research, sharing ideas, and learning about new technologies. SlideShare supports documents and PDF files, and all these are available for free download (after free registration).
Free eBooks
Free eBooks offers a wonderfully diverse variety of free books, ranging from Advertising to Health to Web Design. Standard memberships (yes, you do have to register in order to download anything but it only takes a minute) are free and allow members to access unlimited eBooks in HTML, but only five books every month in the PDF and TXT formats.
A VIP membership here (at $39.95 for a full year or $49.95 for a lifetime membership) gives you unlimited access to any book you want, in any format.
The Online Books Page
The Online Books Page: Maintained by the University of Pennsylvania, this page lists over one million free books available for download in dozens of different formats.
Almost Free Books - World Public Library
World Public Library: Technically, the World Public Library is NOT free. But for $8.95 annually, you can gain access to hundreds of thousands of books in over one hundred different languages. They also have over one hundred different special collections ranging from American Lit to Western Philosophy. Worth a look.
They also have what they call a Give Away Page, which is over two hundred of their most popular titles, audio books, technical books, and books made into movies. Give the freebies a try, and if you really like their service, then you can choose to become a member and get the whole collection.
Not Quite Free Books - Scribd
Scribd offers a fascinating collection of all kinds of reading materials: presentations, textbooks, popular reading, and much more, all organized by topic. Scribd is one of the web’s largest sources of published content, with literally millions of documents published every month.
However, Scribd is not free. It does offer a 30-day free trial, but after the trial you'll have to pay $8.99 per month to maintain a membership that grants you access to the sites entire database of books, audiobooks, and magazines. Still not a terrible deal!
Additional Resources for Free Books
In addition to the sites referenced above, there are also the following resources for free books:
- WorldeBookFair: for a limited time, you can have access to over a million free ebooks.
- WorldLibrary:More than 330,000+ unabridged original single file PDF eBooks by the original authors.
- FreeTechBooks: just like the name of the site, you can get free technology-related books here.
- FullBooks.com: organized alphabetically; there are a TON of books here.
- Bartleby eBooks: a huge array of classic literature, all available for free download.