Since using the iPad while traveling has been a common thread on this blog, I thought I might write a little bit about my experience with Textcast, a software application for the Mac that converts documents into audio podcasts, which you can then listen to on the iPad (or iPhone or iPod, etc.). I would imagine there is some comparable product available for Windows, too.
Textcast uses a basic text-to-speech converter, so the final product isn’t quite audio book quality, but it has, at least in my experience, been usable. What I do is get full-text pdf articles from the library and convert them into .mp3 files using Textcast. Then, I listen to them while traveling, especially when driving. Once, while driving six hours to a conference in Louisville, KY, I even listened to an audio version of my own paper, one I’d written at the last minute, and therefore, had me nervous. Listening to the document in the car helped me identify weak passages, sketchy phrasings, and other flaws, which I was able to fix once I arrived at the conference hotel.
So what do you think? Would you like to listen to articles, perhaps even your own writing, on your iPad? Or is Lady Gaga more your speed?
Looks like “Natural Reader for Mac” will convert pdfs to audio files for your iPad/iPhone/iPod, but it will set you back $70.
Not sure if I would do enough textcasting to justify the price, but if you travel a lot, it might be worth it.
That’s seems to be the work around. This reminds me of some stuff I was working on a long time ago. Check this out … A real blast from the past!
http://www.colecamplese.com/2004/07/listen-up-the-ipod-can-change-grading/
Same here. I copied and pasted the text from the pdf into Textcast. Like Chris says, it’s not pretty, but works well enough for when you’re traveling.
Textcast used to cost $25, but now it is free, which makes me wonder if the app is no longer under active development. If that’s the case, I would imagine someone else must have or be working on something similar. Hopefully, it will entail full pdf support.
Exactly what I ended up doing. I’ll keep looking at it.
Well, I had the same experience and so … I went Old School on it and highlighted the pdf text (after it was OCR’ed) and cut and pasted the whole thing into TextCast. It gives me some junk, which I cleaned a bit, but I find that I just ignore that in my mind as I listen. Still, I wish I could skip footnotes if I wanted to do that. It is not pretty, but it works.
I am really interested in trying this, but for some reason can’t figure out how to get a PDF into textcast to convert it. What am I missing? It won’t let me drag from the desktop onto it. Any help? Seems like a great way to digest content while walking or driving.
I’ve done this using Adobe Reader’s “Read Out Loud” function (under “View”) while doing odd things in the house. A good use of time and not too hard to get used to. Thanks for the tip for making this work on iPad.
In an effort to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of my day, I took your advice and downloaded Textcast so I could “read” a pdf article on my walk to work. I must say, the computer voice takes a little getting used to, but I was able to read about half of the article on the way in and look forward to the second half on the way home. Thanks for the tip on this.