YAKiToMe! (Online Resource)

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September 11, 2008 by Paul Hamilton

This post about a free and versatile online text-to-speech resource is long overdue! This is a service that deserves to be well known, and I’m happy to do whatever I can to spread the word.

YAKiToMe! offers a free online text-to-speech service that allows you to enter text directly, input document files, include feeds from RSS subscriptions to online periodicals (blogs, wikis, etc.), as well as receive input directly from email accounts. Supported file formats include .doc, .pdf, .txt, .html, .xml, and email.

The audio output files created by YAKiToMe! can be either .wav or .mp3. You can listen to these audio files online at YAKiToMe!’s website. Or, you can download the files for use either on your own computer or on a portable mp3 player such as an iPod. In fact, you have the option of “podcasting” your audio files directly to iTunes.

YAKiToMe! creates your audio files with either AT&T Natural Voices or Microsoft Windows voices. You select the voice, and you can set the rate at which the text is read. YAKiToMe! offers even more that you may wish to explore.

Posted in 1 | Tagged AT&T Natural Voices, mp3, text-to-speech, tts, wav, YAKiToMe! | 4 Comments

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4 Responses to “YAKiToMe! (Online Resource)”

on 20 Sep 2008 at 6:50 pm1 PF Anderson

Have you seen http://readthewords.com/ ? My son who is dyslexic (among other things) is using it a lot, and it seems similar. We found RTW early last Spring, and use it to take electronic text and convert it to MP3s for his ipod. Great way to study, especially some of the longer web articles. It seems that they are similar …
on 20 Sep 2008 at 7:01 pm2 Paul Hamilton

Thanks. ReadtheWords is indeed another excellent online text-to-speech resource. –Paul
on 23 Sep 2008 at 12:25 pm3 Elizabeth

I agree with this useful blog article that YAKiToMe! is an excellent site. I’ve used YAKiToMe! both for teaching and personal use. I’ve also explored the other free text to speech (TTS) websites like RTW and I’m of the opinion that YAKiToMe! is the best of breed for the following reasons:
- YAKiToMe! supports more languages (English, Spanish, French, German, …) and voices than any of the other sites.
- YAK has no limitations regarding length of content or number of files you can have, such as those imposed by RTW and other sites. Many sites limit you to a few files, or delete your files after a day or so, or limit the size of any file to a certain number of characters.
- YAK has innovative features for organizing and searching through your content that the other sites don’t have, so you can build your own personal library of audio files.
- I especially like the group features for sharing content with my students at school.

Most important, the YAKiToMe! website quality is excellent. With the other sites I’ve run into crashes, slow response times, strange sounding voices, and other problems with them not working. YAKiToMe! has always worked for me without a hitch. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
on 29 Sep 2008 at 8:07 am4 Francesca

Did some of you tried out Dixero (www.dixero.com)? I’m part of the team and as you have already experienced service like ours it will be great to have your opinion too
Francesca