How to read with a synthetic voice without straining your eyes

Have you ever tried reading books or web articles with the @Voice Aloud Reader app (Android app)? If you've tried reading with that app, reading the text with your eyes as well as listening, you've probably had difficulties; your eyes likely got tired easily. I should clarify that this blog post won't be helpful if you read better on paper or screens without a synthesized voice; but it's worth trying. If reading doesn't spark your interest, or if it easily tires you mentally or bores you, then with practice, in 12 months you'll find reading with a synthesized voice fascinating. According to Gemini:

Current State (No Habit)	Status after 12 months of Technique	Change Factor
Low Curiosity	Active Curiosity	The brain begins to look for "connections".
Selective Memory	Systemic Memory	Knowledge is anchored in previous structures.
Reading fatigue	Auditory Fluency	Using @Voice / Balabolka at high speed.

When reading, the effort of eye movements can strain your eyes. To avoid this, I've come up with the idea of reading in @Voice by focusing your gaze on the center of each line and then looking down as the synthesized voice reads , instead of scanning from left to right. When the synthesized voice reaches the center of the line where you're focusing your gaze, you should look down at the center of the next line and wait for the synthesized voice to reach it. And so on with the following lines. Personally, doing this helps me maintain attention more easily than listening without looking . With just a few hours of practice, you won't subvocalize the text you're looking at. Subvocalization is the words you say in your mind.

I'll first talk about the 'Select to Speak' feature, because it's the simplest way to read with a synthetic voice on Android (except in blogs or web articles, where it stops at each paragraph). (It's called an " accessibility " feature because it might be intended for people with poor eyesight; however, it seems no one can read for very long periods on regular screens, which are constantly flickering, since only e-ink displays (E-Ink) don't flicker.) It allows you to read text with a synthetic voice without leaving the original app (it's much easier and faster to read this way, and it also reads from the center of the lines), meaning you don't have to copy and paste the text into, for example, @Voice Aloud Reader. Furthermore, it's also useful on social media platforms that don't allow copying text to the clipboard (I'm referring to digital text, or native digital text, copied directly; I'm not referring to text from images, graphics, or memes). I've noticed that you can't use 'Select to Speak' in the 'Facebook Lite' app, but you can in the 'Facebook' app.

Accessibility: Select to Pronounce.

To prevent eye strain, in @Voice, it also helps to use a slightly larger font size, not the default (which is size 100), so that the lines are shorter. And use a background color other than white, preferably a dark color, with the font much lighter than the background, in Custom Colors. Or choose the dark mode that @Voice offers.

Example colors @Voice Aloud Reader

But you've probably noticed that holding your phone in the air for so long is tiring. Your arm gets tired long before your mind does when reading. If you're reading while sitting at a table, ideally the screen should be at eye level. I think there are some phone stands that help with that, but the flexible hose ones, in my opinion, are useless because the screen wobbles at the slightest touch. And if you're reading lying down, it's best to keep the forearm holding the screen vertical so it doesn't get tired quickly.

Reading with your phone lying down

And if you've tried reading without looking at the text, just listening, you might have run into another problem. Personally, I find that when I only listen to the synthesized voice, without looking at the text, my ability to pay attention and understand what I'm hearing decreases, even if I configure it to repeat the sentences four or five times; my attention wanes. (Repetitions are configured like this: "@Voice Settings, Voice Settings, Pauses, Repeat each sentence: _X"). The silences that can be inserted between sentences don't help me easily grasp when one sentence has ended and the next one begins. But the solution I found is this: have the synthesized voice pronounce the period (and perhaps other punctuation marks; try it). Using this method, in my case, I only have to listen to each sentence once or at most twice (configuring it twice is equivalent to: "repeat 1 time," that is, the original pronunciation plus the repetition).

I suggest pronouncing the period as a single syllable (since it's frequently read, it might be worthwhile to conserve syllables). For English text, you can pronounce "punto" in Spanish so we can easily recognize that the word isn't part of the text being read. If we want more space between sentences, we can use a longer, meaningless word.

In "Settings," "Edit Voice": Pattern: '.' (point). Replace with: ', punto.' (comma space punto period). The comma adds a short pause before pronouncing 'punto' and the period adds a short pause after. Don't type single quotation marks (' ') in "Edit Voice"; they're only there to help you recognize where the string of characters begins and ends.

Unfortunately, it's impossible to distinguish a period from a separate point by the pause at the end and by listening alone. Unless, of course, you prefer to configure longer pauses between paragraphs compared to between sentences in "Settings, Voice Settings, Pauses." Furthermore, you'll necessarily have to look at the text during dialogue, because it's difficult to understand the voice changes of the speakers and the narrator, if they are spoken.

I recommend purchasing a 'TTS Vocalizer' voice for Android. They're more natural and expressive, and of good quality. They're a one-time purchase on the Play Store, not a monthly subscription; I've verified this. There are pirated TTS Vocalizer voices for Windows; you can find them on YouTube by searching 'TTS Vocalizer voices for Windows', and, for example, on the Telegram profile of this video. ( The original voices cost $53 each.)

TTS Vocalizer logo

According to @Voice Aloud Reader's recommendations, the voices in Google's built-in text-to-speech engine are of average quality. They are noticeably energetic, especially when you slow down the speech, making it difficult to understand the text. Perhaps this is because even the synthesized voice conveys emotion.

Regarding how to share content between apps on Android (from one app to another app). For example, to share content from your browser to @Voice Aloud Reader. When you tap the share button, a list of apps opens from which you can choose.

It's important to note that @Voice functions as a web browser when you tap the 'share' option from a web browser (Chrome, etc.) on Android. What's being shared is the web address, and @Voice loads the content from the internet, not by copying it from the browser (Firefox, etc.). This omits much redundant information, leaving only the article content to read. However, sometimes @Voice doesn't load the webpage correctly, only displaying the first few paragraphs and skipping the rest. When this happens, copy all the content from your browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and paste it into @Voice. (Detailed procedure: Press and hold on text in the browser and tap 'Select all,' then tap 'Copy.' Then switch to the @Voice app and paste the content there.) (To make this easier in @Voice, if you do this frequently, go to Settings: Extra Buttons in the Top Toolbar, and enable the Paste Text option.)

share button

On Windows, you can achieve a similar reading experience using the free program Balabolka by configuring the colors to dark mode. You can also configure a large font size by typing the desired font size number, instead of simply using the default sizes from the drop-down list. Alternatively, you can use a medium font size by reducing the width of the Balabolka window. This ensures the lines are short enough to read more easily from the center. Additionally, Balabolka is compatible with the Vocalizer TTS voices installed on Windows.

Example 1 of short lines

 As I explain in this other post, you can use Microsoft PowerToys (I personally leave it on all the time, set to low opacity so it's not distracting.) When reading with Balabolka, it places a vertical straight line in the center of the lines (or slightly to the left of center, due to the text's left alignment) to prevent the eyes from involuntarily shifting to the sides. This is very useful when reading in very large font (as in "Example 2 of short lines"), a size that may be necessary when two or more people are simultaneously viewing and listening to the reading on the same screen. This reduces eye strain.

Example 2 of short lines

 To configure the colors in Balabolka, I recommend applying colors that are within a quarter of the height of the color gradient square. This is because the points higher up are pure colors, and the points lower down have a grayer tone. This way, the very pure colors don't clash visually.

To avoid frequently changing Balaboka's font size and color settings, you can use two or more portable "installations" of Balaboka, but not on a USB drive; instead, install them on your hard drive. Each "installation" (in quotes because it's not the version to be installed, but the portable version) can have different configurations, such as font size and colors. There are five colors to configure in each "installation," so the extra work is worthwhile.

Balabolka logo

Using the CerePlay app (CereProc Text to Speech). I installed synthetic voices. The Spanish voice (like all the voices) only costs approximately $1.30 in Peru. According to @Voice Aloud Reader's recommendations, they are good quality voices.

Cereplay logo