Wednesday, February 2, 2011

PDF-to-Speech 4.0

There are some improvement we are considering for version 4.0 of PDF-TO-SPEECH.
  • First, we will give the app a face lift. The number of controls have grown as more features have been added to the app, and a GUI redesign is in order to reorganized the new options.
  • Second, we will add bookmarks. The automatic bookmark is already implemented. This one is the one that remembers where you left off when you close the app. The new bookmark feature will allow you to mark a place in the document.

Thanks to all our customers for constant feedback. Always feel free to let us know about issues and feature requests.

24 comments:

throwaway said...

I downloaded 3.1.4.

It works great - for a while. I read a lot a flat txt files, and I was hoping to use it for this while driving. But the app invariably decides that it's at the end of document after a couple minutes, even in mid-paragraph.

I'd be a real fan if you could fix this.

jeremy said...

Does the app says "End of document" ?

If not, the app may be turned off by Android. The latest version 3.1.7 will stay on even if the phone is off (like a music player).

This has been tested to run for 10 minutes reading a long text file. Android 1.6 has not been tested to run uninterrupted even after the phone is off, what type of phone do you have ?

We are going back to testing on 1.6 as some manufacturers are still releasing new phones with that version of Android.

jeremy said...

We were able to replicate the error. We will fix it and release the fix on the next update, thanks for the feedback.

Unknown said...

Hi Jeremy, good evening. I just purchased your program and i am having problems. Can you please help me. When you get a chance. My email address is, gmans1016@gmail.com and my phone # is 847-322-3956. Please help me.

Your friend
Bill Hudzik

Unknown said...

I installed it today for pdf file but it is saying "error loading pdf" :( , I tried for .txt file it asking for "force close". I am a bit disappointed. Could you please help me out? . I have android 2.2 with OI file manager for pdf files collections.

jeremy said...

Most errors with loading PDF files this week have to do with an update on OI Manager. Please install Astro Manager to load the files. We will provide an in-house file chooser in the upcoming version 4.0 to prevent future service disruptions.

jeremy said...

The bug where a long plain text files would get partially read will be fixed for version 4.0. A work around meanwhile to read the rest of the file is to clear the cache as the reader approaches the last cached sentence.

Unknown said...

Is this app able to open "password protected" files so that a password can be entered, or will it throw out an error message?

jeremy said...

Encrypted PDFs are not supported by the app. It is on the todo list, but a release date for the feature is not known.

Unknown said...

Hi Jeremy I have bought pdf to speech spanish version, buy when some update has been downloaded i lost the option in language buton to read in sapnish, I was unable to select spanish because it doesn't appears, how can I fix it? Thanks a lot and sorry about my english.

Gerald Fraser said...

I would like to try this app, but its asking for phone permissions! why do you want that?

jeremy said...

I can speak Spanish as well if that is more convenient.

Ricardo, I'll need to know more about the error. What phone model and Android version do you have ? I have had one other user with a similar error, but I have not been able to reproduce the error. Any more information will be helpful. You can also contact me through my email.

@frafam, the phone permission is needed in order to detect if you are about to receive a call. If so, the app will stop reading, and will resume once you hang up.

Unknown said...

Hi,
I would like to buy your "pdf to speech" for android 2.1 but i have bought several similar tools and none of them works good for me - the problem is in the language. I have installed svox classic + tts extended + polish voice (eva). Of course i tried simple, free tools and ONLY one (Talk to me classic) works with polish language on output. I have bought ezPDF reader (as it was said to be able to handle TTS extended and - this way - polish voice) but it didnt say a single word in polish ;). So i would like to know if your pdf to speech will speak in my native language? (btw sorry for my english, i have learnt it for one year only)

Greetings from Poland

jeremy said...

Piotr. The short answer is yes, it will work. We constantly improve the app, and a previous user from Brazil had requested the feature you are looking for. The current version (3.1.8) will detect the languages present in your phone. The app will use TTS Extended to support SVOX in your case (2.1).

However, I do have to note that pitch control does not work with TTS Extended.

Unknown said...

Thx, I've just bought and it really works! :)
Now I can listen to all of my ebooks during my way to work (almost an hour of listening) - thank you :)

Greetings
Piotr

slwerner said...

I have enjoyed PDF-to_Speech on my Droid X phone. I've just purchased a Motorola Xoom Tablet, and I was wondering if PDF-to_Speech is, or will be, compatible with Android 3.0

jeremy said...

If the current version of pdf-to-speech is not compatible with Android 3.0, we will make a compatible version.

Thanks for the feature request.

Bradley said...

Jeremy, what is this app for? Certainly d
Can't read a 24 page PDF. How do I get a refund?

jeremy said...

Bradley, the app may not be able to read certain non-compliant pdfs. The pdfs will look fine on the screen, but the algorithm to parse the text is more strict.

About the refund, please send me an email through Google Checkout so I can map you to a sell.

We appreciate your feedback.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Hi Jeremy,
is there a possibility to make a "read to file" option? I could read the whole pdf-formatted e-book to a file (preferably compressed) and then use any player to play it - the speech wouldn't be so disturbed by delays, spaces between sentences and (I've got GT540 with little amount of RAM) so jerky?

Great app, anyway ;)
Greetings,
Piotr

k.k said...

Hi!

I just purchased your app and i'm quite pleased but as i'm a Finn, i'd like to have support for Scandinavian characters (in pdf). Ä and ö (hope you can see those two characters. 'A' with two dots and 'o' with two dots) are not supported which is sad because they are quite widely used in Finnish language. Now i have to convert pdf to txt file first and then send it to my phone. This workaround works but isn't very smooth. I know that Scandinavia isn't the most important business area for you but I'd would be very pleased if you could fix this problem someday. All my pdf files works in Adobe Reader.

I still like your app, nice work!

jeremy said...

@kai.kaltiola. Pdf-to-speech will be updated with bookmarks and a search tool soon (somewhat delayed). Also a mystery feature!. I can certainly take a look at a Scandinavian file and make sure the characters are stored correctly. Please, send me a sample file.

Unknown said...

I bought the app a couple weeks ago and have been using it on my Droid 2 phone for reading ebooks. So far, I like the app a lot, but I have one issue. It seems to experience long delays when extracting text from the PDF document. Is there anything that can be done for this?

Also, in some cases, the page number in the textbox doesn't update as the pages are read. Then when I pause and start again, it starts back at the original page.

Lastly, I sometimes have a need to exit the app, but there is no "exit" button. I know that going back will "soft close", but I wondered if you could add a button to actually terminate the app.