Is there a text to speech program that will let me control speed in WPM

June 28, 2011 5:14 PM

Is there a text to speech tool that will allow me to control the speed in Words per minute?

I'm a court reporting student. I want to find a text to speech program that will read at 80-100 words a minute. Adobe reader allows you to adjust the WPM, but has a minimum of 150 WPM. Does anybody know of a program that will do this?

posted by TigerCrane to Technology (1 answer total)

Most TTS software I know of controls speech by percentage of maximum reading speed, not words per minute. But some of them might go slower than 150 wpm anyway. Have you tried "narrator" on its slowest setting? (In Windows, just go to the run dialog box and type "narrator" without the quotes.)

The Kurzweil programs do go by words per minute, and it goes as slow as 70 wpm. But it's expensive, and does a lot of other things you probably don't need. You could request a demo that would work for a month or so (and might start working again if you reinstalled it each month). But there's probably a better solution out there.

These are Windows programs. If you're on a Mac, I dunno.
posted by Net Prophet at 7:48 AM on June 30, 2011