Feature: Read Aloud

Read Aloud

Turn nearly any book in your Library into an audiobook.

What is it?

You can now listen to your books with the Read Aloud feature. With several voices and enhanced voice to choose from, Read Aloud keeps you in The Word while on-the-go.

How to access it?

Open the Logos mobile app.
Open your favorite Bible or another book in your Library.
Click on the Read Aloud icon (speaker) in the top right corner of the Reading View.
You will see an audio player pop up at the bottom and the Read Aloud will begin.
Swipe up on the audio player for more settings options.

Note

Visit our help center to learn more about downloading enhanced voices.
This is available in Bronze packages and above.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this new feature. Please provide your feedback in the comments below.

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Comments

Andrew Biddinger

[Y] Favorite feature!

SineNomine

Visit our help center to learn more about downloading enhanced voices.

This is an iOS only page. The thread simply says "Logos mobile app". What am I missing?

Ali Pope

What am I missing?

The help page demonstrates this on iOS, but they are the same steps for Android.

DominicM

Excellent news Ali, thank the team who implemented this for me please, long overdue

Mark Barnes (Logos)

This is an iOS only page. The thread simply says "Logos mobile app". What am I missing?

The steps for Android can differ depending on your device/manufacturer.

If you search in your settings for text-to-speech or voice or tts you can probably find the right place.

SineNomine

This is an iOS only page. The thread simply says "Logos mobile app". What am I missing?

The steps for Android can differ depending on your device/manufacturer.

If you search in your settings for text-to-speech or voice or tts you can probably find the right place.

I have now found the same sent of text-to-speech settings via Setting as I got to within Verbum itself by tapping on "Audio". No "Enhanced Voices" though.

Robert M. Warren

I have an observation on my Fire tablet (HD 10 11th Gen, Fire OS 7.3.2.4) and Read Aloud. I noticed that the voice is apparently chosen by the app based on: the user-specified default voice, the language of the resource, and the tablet's localization if there are multiple localized voices for that language downloaded. For example, if I specify Brian (UK English), L10 uses Salli (US English) instead, for my USA localized tablet. It does, however, allow me to use a Spain (Castilian) Spanish voice and a France French voice, even though those are likely considered outside my localization. (Those are the only ones I've downloaded for those languages.)

During beta testing, my Android 12 phone (Samsung) allowed me to use either the US or British voice for English. And although it's totally irrelevant here, the Kindle app on the Fire tablet seems to use only the resource language and spec'd default voice, and not the localization.

It's a small point and probably relevant to few, but I thought I would mention it.

[Edit] The less-than-optimal solution is to remove the voice(s) for your localization, which will force L10 to use the remaining voice for your language.

From the expanded audio control (after a swipe-up), tap 'Audio', then 'Download Additional Voices'. Locate the voice to remove and tap it. A circled check will appear to the right. Long press that icon and a 'Remove...' command will appear on the left. Tap it, then confirm the next dialog.

Hagiophilos

This function has a bug on Android with Bluetooth media control. When you pause it and play it again go one sentence ahead.

Chris Garrett

This is my favorite new feature also! I had to go to TTS adjust speech to get a voice that was more pleasant. But this is a game-changer for being able to listen to books while commuting. Thanks Faithlife!

Lew Worthington

This function has a bug on Android with Bluetooth media control. When you pause it and play it again go one sentence ahead.

I tested this out. While connected to my car, e.g., if I pause it or if a call comes in that forces a pause, when it resumes reading, it simply goes back to the sentence it was on before it was paused, which is fine with me. Are you getting a different behavior?

Lew Worthington

But this is a game-changer for being able to listen to books while commuting. Thanks Faithlife!

Same here! When my wife and I travel, I often subject her to my reading voice. Now I will subject us both to an electronic one; but at least it'll save me some energy. [;)]

Marla

Getting Read Aloud is the main reason I would update to Logos 10. Are the available voices natural sounding? Or do they all sound robotic and unnatural (in my opinion) like many computer generated voices?

Robert M. Warren

Getting Read Aloud is the main reason I would update to Logos 10. Are the available voices natural sounding? Or do they all sound robotic and unnatural (in my opinion) like many computer generated voices?

Hi Marla:

The quality of voices is outside the control of Faithlife, and is a function of either the operating system, or a third-party text-to-speech app.

That said, if your experience with text-to-speech is from ten or more years ago, you'll likely be happy with most of the voices now available. The issue is now likely to be more of "I like the way this voice enunciates" (or not), and less of "it sounds like 50s sci-fi". I have no experience with iOS TTS voices, but most of what I have heard about Android is that people are satisfied with the default voices from Google on Android devices. I don't care for them myself, but I have Samsung voices available on my phone, and Ivona voices on my Fire tablet, both of which I am happy with. Samsung has done a particularly good job with their voices, with lots of voices available at the Galaxy Store.

The quality of the text that L10 passes to the operating system is excellent. As with most TTS, there are problems with Roman numerals, common abbreviations like 'vv', 'cf.', etc. But the really cool part of L10 is how it passes full bible book names from abbreviations in the text, or from implied names (where only the chapter and/or verse are in the surface text).

Fr Devin Roza

Getting Read Aloud is the main reason I would update to Logos 10. Are the available voices natural sounding? Or do they all sound robotic and unnatural (in my opinion) like many computer generated voices?

I've tried both, and think that currently the best voices, by quite a bit, are from Google on Android. Note that there are quite a few options, so you may have to play around a bit to see which one you like the best, but some of them are really fantastic.

The iOS voices, if they are "enchanced" versions, aren't too bad, but still sound kind of computery.

Miriam Chen

Does the read aloud change languages easily? I have been using it in Logos 9 desktop. But had to change computer default language before I can switch from English to Chinese. And then I have to restart Logos for it to recognize the change. Does Logos 10 able to auto detect language and switch smoothly?

JT (alabama24)

Does Logos 10 able to auto detect language and switch smoothly?

No. It is dependent upon the OS.

Gary Shippey

Is the read aloud function available in the Logos Mac app or only in the mobile app?

JT (alabama24)

Is the read aloud function available in the Logos Mac app

Yes.