Simple, yet Powerful

Simple TTS Reader is a small utility that reads text from your clipboard using Microsoft Speech API. Whenever you copy any text, the app instantly converts it into spoken words. Select your preferred speech engine from those installed on your system, such as Microsoft Zira, and adjust speed and volume for personalized playback. The application can also be minimized to the system tray. Plus, it is free and comes with an intuitive interface that makes it accessible to everyone.

A Bit of History

The original version of Simple TTS Reader was released around 2007. The core idea was simple: to create a lightweight application focused on reading aloud text from the clipboard. The program was developed using C# and relied on the .NET Framework for functionality.

Over the years, user feedback helped identify areas for improvement. An important change was removing the dependency on the .NET Framework. In 2025, the application was rewritten in Rust, allowing it to run independently without additional software. The new version retains its main function — converting text to speech — and adds the ability to save audio files.

Quickstart Guide

• Download Simple TTS Reader and install it.
• Launch Simple TTS Reader, select desired voice, rate, volume.
• Optionally, you can add more voices in Windows Settings > Time & Language.
• Minimize Simple TTS Reader or click the tray icon to hide it.
• Copy (Ctrl+C) any text to read it aloud. Enjoy.

Tips

• The app doesn't have a stop button for speech output, but you can cancel playback by simply copying any single word from the text. This is an easy way to interrupt prolonged playback.
• The program offers a hidden mode that can be activated in two ways: via the About window (click the About button and check the "Launch hidden" checkbox) or directly at startup using the --hidden command-line argument. This feature allows the application to run minimized in the system tray.
• The Opus codec is an advanced audio compression technology designed for efficient speech encoding, offering excellent file size reduction without sacrificing audio quality. In contrast, the WAV format stores audio without any compression, preserving original quality but creating much larger files.
• Audio files are saved in Low Quality mode by default, which works well with standard Windows voices. For advanced AI voices, High Quality mode (found in the About window) might be needed to preserve sound quality. High Quality increases WAV file sizes by 3 times and Ogg Vorbis files by about 2 times. However, Opus codec files stay almost the same size regardless of quality settings, making High Quality a good choice for Opus without worrying too much about storage space.
• There are at least two types of voices: local ones that work on your computer and online voices that use AI to create high-quality speech. Online voices usually have limits on how much text they can process at once (for example, no more than five minutes). To help you create long audio files like your very own audiobook, there's a special Chunked Mode feature. It breaks large texts into small parts, processes them one by one, and combines them into one audio file. To use it, just start the app with the --chunked command, set it to save audio (Opus with High Quality is recommended), copy any amount of text (one chapter or the whole book) and let the app do the rest (this may take some time). And to disable this feature start the app with --chunked=false command.

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