Last updated on 6 January 2025
The ElevenLabs AI voice creation tool has amazed many by offering high-quality generated voices proficient in multiple languages. However, using these voices for tasks like reading books required a significant investment due to ElevenLabs’ subscription fees.
Thanks to a generous donation from ElevenLabs, the Tech-Freedom app integrated several of these remarkable voices into its document reader feature for free. Now, with the release of the ElevenLabs app for Android, users can access these voices for free as well. So what exactly is the document reader, and how can you utilize the ElevenLabs voices to listen to your documents?
Table of Contents
What is Document Reader?
Document reader is one of the features provided in the Tech-Freedom application. It can open a variety of document formats like PDFs, docs, txt, and epub.
How to Use?
In order to use this feature, you have first to set up the Tech-Freedom app by logging in and verifying your phone number. After completing the verification successfully, you can find the document reader among the list of features.To open a document, you can either:
- Open the document reader feature and select “import” and choose the file that you want to open.
- Select the file using a file manager, for example, and select Tech-Freedom as the app that you want to open the file with when the “open with” dialogue appears.
The app is usually quick to load the file, which is divided into pages. You can use your screen reader to read the content. Tap “Next Page” or swipe left with two fingers to go to the next page. Tap “Previous Page” or swipe right with two fingers to return to the previous one. To enter a page number manually, tap on “Jump to Page.”
For PDF documents, you can recognize text using either the “OCR Current Page” or “OCR Entire File” buttons. Tapping “More Options” provides choices specific to the displayed page, such as exporting the text to a document using the document creator, sharing or copying the text, translating it with the translation feature, or bookmarking the page.
Reading Aloud Using the ElevenLabs Available Voices:
While reading a page, press the “Play” button near the bottom of the screen to start converting the text into speech using one of the ElevenLabs voices. The conversion is done online and may take about a minute to complete. Once the conversion is finished, the file is saved to your device, and playback starts immediately using the Tech-Freedom media player.
As the file plays, the next page is converted in the background. The status of the conversion is displayed in the window and can be read with a screen reader. The converted page should start playing automatically when the current one ends. However, if the conversion is not complete, you will need to wait for it to finish and then tap “Play” to start playback.
When you go back, playback stops, and you return to the document on the page you were on when playback began, not the page that was playing when you closed the media player.
To specify the preferred voice, open the Tech-Freedom app, select the “Settings” tab at the bottom of the screen, and tap “General.” From there, tap on “Voice” and choose your desired voice.
In the settings, you’ll also find options for the document reader, such as enabling automatic OCR for PDFs and selecting whether to resume documents from where you left off before closing them.
A Quick Comparison Between Reading Documents Using Tech-Freedom’s Document Reader and the ElevenLabs App
When Tech-Freedom’s document reader integrated ElevenLabs voices, it was the only app on Android offering this feature. However, ElevenLabs has since released its own app for Android, capable of reading documents using ElevenLabs voices. Notably, the ElevenLabs app is currently free. Despite this, there are key differences between Tech-Freedom’s document reader and the ElevenLabs app.
While the ElevenLabs app offers a larger selection of voices compared to the document reader, some voices are exclusive to Tech-Freedom and not available in the ElevenLabs app. This is true for users without a subscription to the ElevenLabs app; I have no information on whether subscription holders have access to additional voices.
Another distinction lies in how text is processed. Tech-Freedom converts entire pages at once, whereas the ElevenLabs app processes smaller portions of text. This approach often allows the ElevenLabs app to begin playback more quickly. However, the ElevenLabs app currently does not allow users to save the converted audio files to their device. In contrast, Tech-Freedom automatically saves each page as an MP3 file.
Additionally, the ElevenLabs app allows users to switch voices during playback. In Tech-Freedom, changing voices requires closing the document, returning to the home screen, and selecting a new voice in the settings. To re-read previously converted pages with the new voice, users must manually delete the existing audio files from the “Audio Books” folder in the Tech-Freedom directory.
Remarks
Tech-Freedom’s document reader is one of the features I use the most in Tech-Freedom. It loads files quickly and provides a clean reading experience. The integration of ElevenLabs voices was a standout feature that set it apart from competitors, and it continues to hold its place even after the release of the ElevenLabs app for Android. During my usage, I am consistently impressed by the multi-language reading capabilities of the ElevenLabs voices. However, one area where these voices are weak is in number reading. For instance, in some languages like Arabic, the numbers can be unclear or even reversed.
This issue also affects the ElevenLabs reader app. As a workaround, the Tech-Freedom reader now reads most numbers in English. While this reduces errors, it may not be ideal for users who do not understand English numbers. Still, this approach is the most practical solution until ElevenLabs addresses the issue.
The document reader layout has room for improvement. Currently, as noted earlier, there is no way to change voices while viewing a document. Additionally, the absence of a recent files list means users must either use the import option or navigate to the file through a file manager to reopen a document.
While saving converted files is a benefit of the document reader, the accumulation of files over time can lead to significant storage consumption. Adding an option to delete saved files or setting an automatic deletion period would be a valuable enhancement.
Another area for improvement is in preserving formatting. For instance, if headings remained as headings, it would allow for easier navigation using the screen reader’s headings granularity.
Tech-Freedom’s document reader continues to deliver a solid reading experience that satisfies many users. The Tech-Freedom team’s efforts in maintaining and refining the feature are highly appreciated. However, the hope remains that they always acknowledge any limitations, so users know how to take full advantage of the feature and understand the expected restrictions, when there are any.
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