Long story short: DO NOT waste money on NaturalReader 9

You’re going to see me use the product name NaturalReader 9 often in this review. This is to bump up the keyword relevance to make sure this review shows up as close to the program as I can manage in most search engines.

Now, as you may not know, I have problems with processing text in my head. I often lose letters or words randomly. My brain also makes odd substitutions, like b for p and d for q. I lose r in many words like a mothefucker, as wells as e and s. I forget to put in period and my commas, sometime migrate to places they shouldn’t be (yeah, that time it was intentional, just to show you what I mean)

So basically, anything from me that’s earlier than a third draft reads like a dyslexic nightmare.

In Windows XP, I relied upon Microsoft’s Lit Reader to help me proofread documents. I could download a plugin for Word that converted documents to LIT, and then using reader, I could have “Sam” read the story for me and help me find most of my mistakes. So instead of having to do 20 drafts and still only catch 75% of my mistakes, I was catching  close to 98% with a very basic and free text-to-speech program.

Recently I chose to upgrade to Windows 7, but I was still using Office XP. Except, the LIT converter plugin no longer works for some reason, and of course, Microsoft apparently isn’t updating the module for Windows 7 users. (In fact, Microsoft’s support site has become next to fucking useless, but that’s another rant altogether.) The new replacement for “Sam” is “Anna,” who speaks so unnaturally at any speed that she annoys me into a full rage within two pages.

After finding no help on Microsoft’s site, (big shock, I know) I ran a search for Text to Speech software and found a link to NaturalReader 9. I listened to the voice samples, and I didn’t find them as grating as Anna. So I thought I’d try the personal edition for $49.95.

Downloading worked well enough, and the install went fine. The voices were separate downloads, and both voice files were roughly six times larger than the program itself. But they installed fine once they finished downloading. Everything went downhill from there fast.

Let’s start off with the so-called natural voices of NaturalReader 9. They don’t sound the least bit natural as readers. They…pause randomly…even on short…sentences with…no commas. When the reader encounters any actual ellipse, the reader ignores them and reads straight through with no pause.  Both male and female voices place strange emphasis on consonants randomly, making some words sound like they are REALLY excited. Which might make sense if there were an exclamation point at the end. But even when there isn’t, the reader seems to think it’s supposed to shout.

Pronunciation isn’t clear at all, and words ending in -ed are read sounding like -ing. Short words like a, are, can, for and at get lost because the reader gives no emphasis on them. Which is weird, because oh, yeah, but & and get HEAVY emphasis.

If I were blind, or not looking directly at the screen, I would have to think the writer of the document was at fault. But looking directly at the screen as the document is being read, I can see that the text is right. It’s the reader having issues.

This is before you get into problems with the program interface. The program starts off in a maximized window. You can click the icon at the top to make it a normal window, and then resize it to suit your preferences. But if you minimize the program, your settings are lost. Close the program, and when you open it again, bang, back to maximized size. This problem is compounded by the new system policy in Windows 7 that make setting window behavior an Admin only task. (WTF Microsoft? How is this shit more helpful?) But even if you set that aside, changing the setting does not work right. Setting the size to “normal window” gets a maximized window, while “maximized window” sends the program to the system tray. This isn’t just WTF; it’s WTFBBQ, with heavy WTH sauce.

There is a “Word toolbar” which has the same flaws as the reader, obviously. But in addition to this, any document read by NaturalReader 9 through this bar no longer gets a link in recent documents, both in the Word File menu, and on the Start menu. Somehow, the NaturalReader 9 toolbar corrupts the document history.

If all this weren’t bad enough, when using the reader with large documents like books, pressing play inside the Word toolbar leads to a 5-10 second delay before the reader starts. Find a typo? You have to stop the reader to correct it. No, you cannot edit on the fly if you use the toolbar. So even a minor edit like adding a period takes 30 seconds. Yes, very…unproductive. (BTW, I’m so proud of myself for this review not devolving into a gibbering mess of random cuss words.)

This  slow interface forces me to copy text from the Word document, paste it into the NaturalReader 9 window in sections, and then pay extremely close attention to the Word text to see when there is a real mistake instead of “Paul” blowing his lines. And really, “Kate” is like a less computerized version of “Anna.” I can’t listen to her for more than twenty seconds without being annoyed.

There is an added “feature” where NaturalReader 9 can record a reading to an MP3 file, but this is next to worthless with the quality of each reading being so poor. I can’t stand the way the voices read the file the first time through, so why would I want to record a reading for future abuses on the same document?

While it’s true that the NaturalReader 9 voices do sound more human than the Microsoft default Anna, this is a matter of pitch and tone. They do not read any more naturally than Anna, and in fact they have the same problems. Frankly, I’d rather have the computer speak in a flat monotone with a consistent pace instead of this…choppy method of…speaking like there’s….commas all over the…place.

Summing up, I’m extremely dissatisfied with NaturalReader 9, and I would feel bad for blind people who have to rely on such an awful text-to-speech engine for reading to them. The end result of this poor performance can only be confusion for them, and I seriously doubt upgrading to the Pro version would correct this. As near as I can tell, the pro version just means you get four voices that will all mangle the English language like a baby in a wood chipper. That’s hardly a compelling reason to drop an extra $50 on this heap of shit. On a five star rating system, this clunker actually manages to rate a negative score of -2 stars. No, seriously, it’s that bad.

Steer clear of this product, and if anyone asks about NaturalReader 9 discourage them from wasting their money. There has to be a better solution for proofreading and Text-to-Speech services for the blind. Because if this is the state of all TTS software, the handicapped are getting shoddy software for ridiculous prices.

Product Review: NaturalReader 9, 5.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating

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... I write dark fiction in a variety of genres. My blog contains my rants and rambles, and some short fiction that can only be found here. I can be pretty fucking offensive, so viewer discretion is advised.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 11:26 am and is filed under other peoples' stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.