Pronunciation Dictionary Enhancements
You can now keep the Pronunciation Dictionary utility open while using TextAloud. Dictionary Import / Export is available. Dictionary entries are are now sortable by column.

Integration with Pocket and Instapaper
Users who sign up for online save-for-later services Pocket™ (https://www.getpocket.com) and Instapaper™ (https://www.instapaper.com) can import bookmarked articles into TextAloud. You can link to these services from Settings in TextAloud to create an account. You will also need to install their extension in your browser.

Rebuilt Floating Toolbar
The Floating Toolbar is all new and is now able to speak selected text in any window, or import selected text into TextAloud. All Floating Toolbar settings are now configured from the toolbar itself.

New Theming Support (Skins)
Support for Theming is much improved over the previous skins in TextAloud. You can choose to limit the theme selection to high contrast themes, and when you select a theme, the default article colors and word highlighting options will follow the theme you select. These changes can help low vision users get set up and going more quickly.
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This is the base TextAloud 4 interface.


This is the theme Metropolis UI Dark.


This is one of several high contrast themes as mentioned above.

Article List on the Left
Under the View menu, you can configure Multi-Article mode to display the artice list on the left, or you can instead choose a tabbed display as in the previous version. The default is to display the list on the left where you can arrow up and down in the list, and double click (or press the return key) to start speaking the selected article. There are four buttons available in the main menu to skip between articles (First, Previous, Next, Last), but the buttons are hidden by default. You can make them visible by right clicking the toolbar.
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This is the layout with the article list on the left.


This is the tabbed interface familiar from previous versions.

Improved Voice Change Tags
Improved voice change tags mean TextAloud 4 automatically sets the speed, pitch and volume at each voice change. TextAloud 4 does this by using the voice configuration in Voice Settings. Previously in TextAloud 3, speed, pitch and volume changes had to be set manually at voice tags.
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Simplified Word Highlighting
Word highlighting is now much easier to configure with a ‘Highlighting Style’ dropdown available that lets you easily pick between different styles. The Default style will automatically adjust highlighting colors based on the current article colors. Changing your article colors will automatically adjust highlighting colors. Predefined styles include common highlighting colors (yellow, cyan, pink and green) and an underline style available that applies an underline to the current article font. These predefined color / underline styles are simply appled to your current article font and background colors. If you choose “Custom” as the style, you can configure highlighting like before in TextAloud 3, where you pick individual font styles, foreground color and background color.

Scroll Around and Skip to Different Locations
Use the article scroll bar or keyboard to move around the TextAloud 4 window while speaking is in progress. When TextAloud 4 detects an arrow key has been pressed or that the scroll bar was manually changed, speaking continues but word highlighting pauses a few seconds so you can just click the mouse to put the cursor where you want it then press the return key or space bar to go there.

New Navigations
The navigations “Repeat Current Sentence” and “Repeat Current Paragraph” were added to the Navigations menu.

Speak From Sentence
Have speaking start from the beginning of the current sentence. So if you stop speaking temporarily, you can resume speaking from the start of the sentence instead of starting in the middle

Speaking Rules
The Settings dialog includes four pages / tabs of rules you an configure, including many things that used to require pronunication dictionary entries to be created. For example, automatic pauses and character filtering are now there as speaking rules.

New Hotkeys
System hotkeys were added to toggle ‘Watch Clipboard’ and ‘Watch Mouse’. The hotkeys include an option to display a confirmation so you know the watch option was turned on or off.

Clipboard / Mouse Speak
A new option to ignore clipboard updates / mouse updates while speaking is in progress.

Configurable Double Click
Shortcut setup now lets you configure how to treat double clicks in the article area. By default, Ctrl+Double Click will perform a Speak from Cursor action, and Ctrl+Alt+Double Click will open pronunciation dictionary maintenace with the currently selected word.

Improved File Splitter
The File Splitter has been updated to support splitting ePub documents by chapter. Articles created using split by chapter will have chapter names assigned as article titles.

Audio File Enhancement
Support added for writing Ogg/Vorbis audio files.

Audio Meter on Voice Options Panel
The voice options panel now has an audio meter to help facilitate using voices at high Sapi5 volume settings. When you test the voice you can tell if the audio is being clipped, and you need to lower the Sapi5 volume (not the system volume) for the voice.

Right To Left Text Support
Customers using Arabic and/or Hebrew voices will find improved support for right to left text in the TextAloud 4 main window.

New Repeat Tag
There is a new “Repeat” Tag. To use it, select some text in the article, and click Insert Tags -> Repeat. Pick the number of times you want the text repeated, and it generates a tag.

Enhanced Voice Change Tag
The new voice change tag will adjust voice speed, voice pitch and voice volume along with the voice change.

Show / Hide Tags
There is now an option to hide tags in the text. The beginning and end of the tag marker is displayed so you know it is there.

User Interface Modes
Under the Control Center menu, you can configure the user interface mode as Single Article, Multi Article or Batch. What used to be the Batch File conversion utility is now just a way of operating TextAloud 4 with all functionality now available while you’re in batch mode. Also, Batch mode is no longer limited to using files only as you can now add articles in batch mode the same as in multi article mode. Speak button configuration settings and auto continue options are configurable by user interface mode. The default speak options settings for batch Mode are to begin speaking from the start of the first article, and auto continue to the next article.