Spoken Word

Spoken Word is a small Windows application that features text-to-speech capabilities for helping you hear the words embedded in DOC, DOCX, RTF, or plain text files being spoken aloud.

The advantages of being portable

This is a portable program and it is important to mention that it doesn’t leave any traces in the Windows Registry.
You can copy it on any USB flash drive or other devices, and take it with you whenever you need to read documents aloud on the breeze, without having to go through installation steps.

Simple looks

There’s not much to brag about the user interface, as everything is kept as simple and clear as possible. Files can be uploaded in the working environment using the built-in browse button, so you cannot rely on the drag-and-drop support.

Text-to-speech capabilities

Spoken Word offers you the possibility to preview the content of the selected document in the main window but you cannot edit it. You are allowed to select the desired text that you want to process, as well as play, pause, or stop the rendering process.
Additionally, you may adjust the volume pretty easily, thanks to the built-in slider, and pick the desired voice from several preset options.
On the downside, you cannot write a user-defined text message in the primary panel, paste the information from the clipboard, alter the voice rate, and perform tests to check out the audio quality.
Tests revealed that Spoken Word accomplishes the process pretty quickly and provides good audio quality. It doesn’t eat up a lot of CPU and memory, so the overall performance of the computer is not hampered.

Bottom line

All in all, Spoken Word offers a simple software solution and comes bundled with limited features when it comes to helping you read the text from different documents.