RHVoice User Guide for Android

Quick Start Steps

Open the App and install one or more voices.
Set RHVoice as your Preferred Text-to-speech engine.
Set your preferences for quality, voice rate, volume, etc. in the App's Settings.
Read the Overview to learn about where the App comes from, and its mission.

For everything else you want answered, please consult our F.A.Q.,

Overview

This is a Text-to-Speech Engine with a collection of voices.

Use it with your reading apps, or accessibility tools like Talkback and low-vision accessibility tools.

This App was created by blind and partially-sighted programmers. They designed the App for users who cannot read text to allow them to operate their phone. Sighted users are, of course, welcome - but please forgive the App's graphic design.

The voices in the App were developed by various groups. Many of those groups are volunteers. We hope to be given more voices and languages to publish. Please be patient if your language has no voices yet. Contact if you can help.

Installing Voices

The App opens on its Languages page. Select the language you want.

This takes you to a list of voices available for the language.

You can play an audio example of the voice. This will tell you whether the voice is installed or not. If the voice is not installed, there will be an install button. Otherwise, there will be an uninstall button.

Go to the Settings page to configure various settings for the language.

Make this App your Text-to-Speech Engine

In Android Settings, find the Text-to-speech output section. If you are reading this in the App, click the button below to take you there. Once there, select RHVoice as your engine. After this is done, TalkBack and other Apps will use this App instead of Google Text-to-speech.

If you want to read text in a different language to your system language, you can select it with the "Language" control.

RHVoice Settings

Speech Quality is available at three levels

High responsiveness is the default. For many voices. This gives the same or slightly less quality than the Best Quality setting. But, with high responsiveness setting the voices begin to speak instantly. This is very important for screen-reader users.
Best quality: This provides the best sound.
For low-power devices: Use this setting if there are problems with the other settings.

Language-specific Settings

Default Voice

If you have more than one voice installed for a language, you can choose which one to use.

Speech Volume and Rate

These can also be set on Android for all voices. But in this App, you can increase or decrease the relative rate and volume of each voice if you use more than one.

Pronunciation Dictionaries

These allow you to tell the App how to pronounce any written word.

This feature will be improved in future.

Language Detection

If you read two languages on your phone, the App might be able to switch voices depending on which language you are reading.

To switch, you must install a voice for each language. Not every two languages can be switched.

If you have a voice for English, and a voice in another language, then the voice which matches your device's language will be the primary voice. If you want automatic switching from your primary to secondary language, go to the Settings in the App for the secondary language, and enable language detection.

Also, some voices can speak English words inside sentences. Because of limitations, it will not sound like a good, English speaker, but pronunciation rules will be followed. Sometimes there will be inaccuracies. To enable this feature, go to Settings for your language, and select the "try to speak English words" option.