If you wish to have your computer or device read a PDF to you, the library recommends the free built in Read Out Loud feature in Adobe Reader. While the feature is free to use, it's important to note that the voices do not sound natural and the reader will read every bit of text within the PDF including headers and footers.
To get started, if it is not already on your computer, download Adobe Reader (free version).
Once you have done that, open the PDF using Adobe. Within the Adobe menu, follow these instructions:
View > Read Out Loud > Activate Read Out Loud
Natural Readers Web-Based Program
Another recommendation is the online program, Natural Reader. This service, allows you to drag and drop a text readable file into the browser and listen to the text found within the object.
It is free to sign up for Natural Reader and free accounts can use the program for up to 20 minutes of reading aloud a day (which is about the average time for the program to read an average 15 page article). Anything beyond 20 minutes a day will require a paid account
Natural Readers supports: PDF, txt, doc(x), ppt(x), pages, ods, odt, and non-DRM ePub files as long as they are readable file with OCR (optical character recognition).
Included in the features are: dyslexia fonts, various natural sounding voices, bookmarks, pronunciation editor, footer and header adjustments.
