I normally read audiobooks. The choices available on BARD are extensive. The quality of each and every book is outstanding. There are no robtic voices but instead are human readers who give professional performances. Many of the offerings are commercial audiobooks that have been adapted for the National Library Service. And it is all free!
Every now and then, a book comes across my radar screen that I really want to read but it is not yet available on BARD. Granted, it does not happen often, but it happens. Most of the time I simply hope that book will be made available in the near future, but sometimes I just want it now.
That happened to me this week. Someone We Know by Shari Lapena was recommended to me but was not available on BARD. So I downloaded it from bookshare. I downloaded the book to my Voice Dream reader app on my iPad.
Voice Dream provides many options. I can choose to read the print or have the print read to me. I can even switch back and forth – reading some of the print and having some of it read to me – at my discretion. Either way, everything is customizable from font size to tone of voice, and so much more.
When I choose to read the book in print on my iPad I have found that Arial or Helvetica work best for me, using font size 60. I set the bold also. I am most comfortable with standard black letters on a white background, but there are times I prefer to invert the colors, and that is an easy accommodation to make.
Voice Dream will read to me, if I so choose. Sometimes I set Heather to read, sometimes Paul, and sometimes Salli. There are so many to choose from. Each of these speaks in a manner and style that is comfortable for me.
Voice Dream is not just a reader. There are additional features to help the reader get around the book or document, such as highlighting, setting bookmarks, a dictionary, and writing notes. Everything is searchable, too.
A light tap on the screen will expose controls along the top and bottom of the screen. At the top are speech and audio settings as well as other controls. At bottom are the playback audio controls.
Lots of hand gestures are available to help the reader move quickly and easily through every book and document.
Last but not least, Voice Dream imports books from various sources like bookshare and Gutenberg. It imports articles from web addresses and from scanned documents.
Voice Dream is assistive technology that puts everyone on the same page.
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