Reading aloud

We have a tutorial on this site.

As for today, FBReader includes automatic reading aloud only on Android and only in the Premium version. We are working to implement the feature on iOS and in the desktop version.

Unfortunately, no. As for today, the reading aloud is only implemented for “text” formats. This means PDF, DjVu, and comic books do not suit. We plan to implement the feature soon, at least for PDFs.

FBReader has no own speech generator. Instead, it uses text-to-speech engines installed in the system.

On Android, you can install different engines and voices. Some of them are free; some others have to be purchased. Look to the system text-to-speech settings and for engines in your software store.

Most probably, the voice engine selected on your device uses network resources. That requires significant traffic and might work with intermittency. Try to choose a non-network voice.

That might be related to energy-saving settings. On many modern Android devices, the system tries to stop background processes to save the battery.

The solution depends on your device model. Some manufacturers allow to include an application to the list of “exceptions” from the power optimisation mechanism. If your device has such an option, you need to include two apps: FBReader Premium and the text-to-speech engine.

With the Android 15 update, Samsung changed its policy, restricting Samsung voices to their own apps. As a result, FBReader and other third-party apps can no longer use these voices.

We recommend exploring alternative text-to-speech engines available on Google Play or other app stores.

For more details and user discussion, see this Samsung Community thread.