Text readers

Windows Text-to-Speech and Literacy Support Tools

To read text with the Scottish Voices on your device, you need a text reader, screen reader or text-to-speech app. A text to speech app converts text from a document, webpage or app on your device into spoken speech using a computer voice. The text is converted to speech by the app and the audio version of the text is read aloud by the voice.

The Scottish voices work with free Windows text readers (below) and Literacy Support apps like Clicker, Read&Write and ClaroRead:

Visit our Text-to-Speech pages on the main CALL Scotland website to find other apps and how they can be used.

You can't use the Scottish Voices with Microsoft's Immersive Reader because Immersive Reader can only speak with Microsoft's own voices.

Technical requirements

The CereProc voices are compatible with Microsoft SAPI 5 and are supported on Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11. They appear in the Windows Text-to-Speech Control Panel or in the voice list for your text-to-speech app. PCs with at least a 1GHz processor and 256MB RAM are recommended.

All the voices are CereProc's latest CereWave AI 48k voices which give excellent clarity and naturalness. Download size and disk space usage are around 100MB-150MB.

Mac OSX Text Reader

The built-in Text to Speech on a Mac is accessed through the Dictation and Speech System Preferences.

Visit our Text-to-Speech pages on the main CALL Scotland website to find out more.

Technical requirements

The CereProc Mac voices work on Mavericks, Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma. They appear in the system voices list, found under 'Accessibility > Speech' in 'System Preferences'.

iOS Text Reader and Literacy apps

As of 2024, you can download the free CerePlay iOS app and then buy the voices you want for 99p each. The voices will appear in the iPad or iPhone system voices or in the list of voices on your text-to-speech app.

SmartBox's Grid for iOS has CereProc voices available for download and the app can be used for personal communication, reading websites and documents and for writing content that can be copied into other apps.

Chromebooks

Texthelp Read & Write and OrbitNote

An easy way to get text-to-speech on a Chromebook is to install the free Read&Write for Google Chrome extension. It has the Andrew, Heather and Stuart voices, plus the Ceitidh Scottish Gaelic voice. The free version gives you a text reader while the paid Premium version has many more features and tools to support reading and writing. Teachers can get a free Premium subscription.

OrbitNote, texthelp's tool for reading PDFs and digital exam papers also has the voices.

This blog post has more details.

Android CereProc Scottish voices

You can install the Scottish voices as Android apps on most Chromebooks made after 2019 – a list of earlier Chromebooks that can run Android apps is on the Google Chromium Projects web site. Information about using Android apps on a Chromebook is available on this Support site.

Go to CereProc Text-to-speech on the Google Play Store and buy the voice(s) you want. Most of the voices are 59p each. The child and teenage voices aren't yet available.

Craig's Select to Speak with Scottish Voices blog has instructions on how to install the CereProc voice app and he's also made a video on how to set it up.

If you are in a school, you'll probably have to speak to your Chromebook Administrators to ask for the voice apps.

Once the voice is installed on the Chromebook, open it, press on the "i" button and set the voice as your Preferred Engine.

Then go to the Chromebook Accessibility Settings:

Turn off Select to Speak and ChromeVox.
Go to Settings > Accessibility and find Text-to-Speech voice settings.
In Preferred Voices, select the voice list and scroll down and select the voice you want, e.g. "Android Stuart TTS en".
Turn on Select to Speak or ChromeVox.

Select and Speak

We have had mixed experiences with the ChromeOS built-in Select to Speak text reader and the ChromeVox screen reader - it works on most newer Chromebooks but not on some others.

The Scottish voices can also be used with these Chromebook text readers:

ClaroRead Chrome - a free extension that gives a text reader, prediction and a colour screen overlay.
NaturalReader - free and paid-for extension for reading documents, PDFs and web pages.
Google Play Books - for reading eBooks.
Foxit PDF Reader - an Android app for reading PDFs.
Read Aloud - a free text reader for web pages.

Acapela and other voices

Voices from Acapela can also be used on a Chromebook – see the Chromebook Help web site for more information. You need to download the free Acapela TTS Engine app and then buy a voice costing between £5.09 and £6.39. The Scottish Rhona voice is very suitable for anybody wanting text read with a Scottish voice.

Android Text Reader / Literacy apps

The CereProc Scottish voices can be purchased from the Google Play Store for £0.59 each. They can be used with the built-in Select to Speak facility and with most apps that read out text. Choose your Scottish Voice from the CereProc voices on the Google Play Store and download the app for the voice. Then set the Scottish voice as your Preferred Text to Speech Engine by either tapping on:

Settings > Accessibility > Vision > Text-to-Speech options > Preferred TTS engine or
Settings > Language and Input > Text-to-Speech options > Preferred TTS engine.

Apps and facilities that can use the Scottish voices include:

Select to Speak - built-in text reader that can be used to read most (but not all) text from the screen.
Google Play Books - can read most books in the Play Books store, with text highlighted as it is read.
EZ PDFReader - very good for reading text from an article or book in PDF format, but it cannot read from a Text Box, so it is not suitable for use with digital exams and forms. We have not yet found a reliable app that can read text from a text box.
Claro ScanPen - can be used to take an image of printed text and convert it into text which can be read out using a Scottish voice.

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Main navigation.

Text readers

Windows Text-to-Speech and Literacy Support Tools

Technical requirements

Mac OSX Text Reader

Technical requirements

iOS Text Reader and Literacy apps

Chromebooks

Texthelp Read & Write and OrbitNote

Android CereProc Scottish voices

Select and Speak

Acapela and other voices

Android Text Reader / Literacy apps

Apps and facilities that can use the Scottish voices include: