Balabolka

Balabolka is a Text-To-Speech (TTS) program. All computer voices installed on your system are available to Balabolka. The on-screen text can be saved as an audio file. The program can read the clipboard content, extract text from documents, customize font and background colour, control reading from the system tray or by the global hotkeys. Balabolka supports text file formats: AZW, AZW3, CHM, DjVu, DOC, DOCX, EML, EPUB, FB2, FB3, HTML, LIT, MD, MOBI, ODP, ODS, ODT, PDB, PRC, PDF, PPT, PPTX, RTF, TCR, WPD, XLS, XLSX.

The program uses various versions of Microsoft Speech API (SAPI); it allows to alter a voice's parameters, including rate and pitch. The user can apply a special substitution list to improve the quality of the voice's articulation. This feature is useful when you want to change the spelling of words. The rules for the pronunciation correction use the syntax of regular expressions.

Balabolka can save the synchronized text in external LRC files or in MP3 tags inside the audio files. When an audio file is played with players on a computer or on modern digital audio players, the text is displayed synchronously (at the same way, as lyrics for songs).

Download Balabolka

Size: MB

Version: Changelog

Licence: Freeware

Operating System:

Portable Version: Download ( MB)
Portable Balabolka does not require an installation and can be run from a USB drive.
A computer must have at least one voice installed.

Command Line Utility: Download ( KB)
The utility contains no graphical user interface and works only from the command line.
The application handles various command line parameters to be able to read text aloud or save as an audio file.

Text Extract Utility: Download ( MB)
The program allows to extract text from the various types of files. The extracted text can be combined into one file or/and split into few files. The utility works from the command line, without displaying any user interface.

* Balabolka is a Russian word, it can be translated as "chatterer".

Balabolka

The program allows to use skins for customizing your window appearance.

Download Skin Pack (6.7 MB, 107 skins)

Balabolka

Voices

Balabolka can use the Microsoft Speech API 4.x/5.x voices and the Microsoft Speech Platform text-to-speech engines.

SAPI 4

All voices for SAPI 4 became obsolete; they are not recommended for installing anymore.
Use the fresh versions of speech engines.

SAPI 5

RHVoice – free and open source speech synthesizer (it supports Czech, English, Esperanto, Georgian, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Tatar, Ukrainian and Uzbek):

UkrVox – free Ukrainian voice created by Yaroslav Kozak (Lviv, Ukraine):

UkrVox Igor

Ekho – free TTS engine (it supports Cantonese, Mandarin and Zhaoan Hakka):

Echo (Chinese)

Hear2Read – free voices for Indic languages (Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu):

Hear2Read Windows SAPI TTS Software

To get better voice quality, you can purchase commercial TTS engines.

High Quality Commercial Voices:

In Windows 11 the Microsoft Edge browser contains new voices. NaturalVoiceSAPIAdapter utility allows to add new speech engines to the SAPI 5 voice list. More information can be found here. Since Balabolka is a 32-bit application, you should install the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the utility (see "Installation Status" in the utility's window). You can download the latest release of the utility.

Microsoft Speech Platform

The Microsoft Speech Platform allows developers to build and deploy Text-to-Speech applications. The Microsoft Speech Platform consists of a Runtime, and Runtime Languages (engines for speech recognition and text-to-speech). There are separate Runtime Languages for speech recognition and speech synthesis. The version of the Runtime Languages must match the version of the Speech Platform that you installed.

Use the following steps to install the Microsoft Speech Platform (version 11.0):

Download and install the Speech Platform Runtime
(the file 'x86_SpeechPlatformRuntime\SpeechPlatformRuntime.msi').
Download and install Runtime Languages for use with the Speech Platform
(file names starting with 'MSSpeech_TTS_').

The Microsoft Speech Platform provides support for 26 languages for speech synthesis. XML tags can be used both for SAPI 5 and the Speech Platform.

Spell Checking

Balabolka can use Hunspell (hunspell.github.io). Hunspell is the default spell checker of OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice and Mozilla Firefox.

Spell checker dictionaries for Windows:

Balabolka can use language modules from Microsoft Office 97/2000 for spell checking. If Microsoft Office is not installed on your computer, or you use the other version of Microsoft Office, you can download spell checking components from my web-site:

Balabolka allows to use the spell checking built in operating system. The Spell Checking API is available beginning with the Windows 8.