13 thoughts on “Sensory Readable Suite V3 for Windows with English Natural Voices”

• Capabilities introduced for the first time in version 3.

  Readable Banner
  A scrolling reading display that shows the text being spoken with the current word highlighted, set within a small window of the words just read and the words coming up. The reader chooses the font, size, colour, spacing, scroll behaviour and how many words are shown at once.

  Word Information popup (Ctrl+Shift)
  Holding Ctrl+Shift and hovering over a word shows an instant popup with its definition, pronunciation and related entries, drawn from a built-in offline dictionary of more than 147,000 words. In v3 this works in any Windows application — Word, browsers, PDFs, email — and even over text inside images or locked PDFs, which it recognises first using on-screen text recognition.

  Sensory Prediction
  v3 adds Sensory’s own word-prediction option as an alternative to the default Microsoft (Windows) prediction. Writ

  Sensory Fonts
  A set of six reading fonts is now included and can be applied to supported reading and writing views, selectable as part of the font and spacing options.

  Read to End shortcut (Ctrl+Space)
  A new keyboard shortcut that starts reading from the cursor and continues to the end of the document, giving a quick keyboard alternative to clicking Play.

  Small Toolbar
  A compact version of the Readable toolbar, taking up less screen space while keeping every button accessible.

  PDF Convert 2 (in the v3 Suite)
  The Sensory Readable v3 Suite includes the upgraded Sensory PDF Convert 2. It brings pages in three ways — scanning, opening an image (JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF), or opening an existing PDF — runs automatic OCR on each page, and saves to four formats: Accessible PDF, Plain Text, Rich Text (RTF) or Word document (DOCX).

  Improved in v3
  Features that existed in v2.5 and are now significantly better or broader.

  Save to Audio (MP3)
  Saving spoken text as an audio file is substantially improved in v3. The audio is recorded at a noticeably higher resolution, and you can now select any text and save it — either from the clipboard or directly from Microsoft Word. In v2.5 this was available only from within Word.

  Hover reading across applications
  The hover reading modes now work across virtually any application on screen, reading text under the pointer even where it cannot be selected, by recognising the text on screen. In v2.5 hover reading limited to where it could operate based on accessible text provided by the underlying application.

  More voices in v3
  v3 takes an offline-first approach to voices and expands the range that installs on the PC. There are two families: high-quality Natural Voices from Microsoft, and Sensory’s own offline Sensory voices.

  Natural Voices
  Sonia and Ryan (UK) carry over from v2.5 along with five further Natural Voices: Guy, Jenny and Aria in American English, and Neerja and Prabhat in Indian English. These are high-quality voices suited to readers who want clear, natural-sounding speech in a particular accent.

  Sensory voices (offline, UK & Irish)
  v3 also adds a set of twelve offline Sensory voices in UK and Irish accents — Florence, Jenny, Gabriel, Estella, Ophelia, Alba, Elias, Sterling, Beryl, Albert, Elowen and Alistair — broadening regional accent choice across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland. Because they run offline, they work without an internet connection, which is helpful in exam settings and on managed or restricted networks.

• Updated to Version 2.5.5.1 on 6th Feb 2026. Changes include:
  – Improved voice connector.
  – New version of Sensory Ruler that works better with additional extended screens

• Updated to Version 2.5.5.0 on 4th July 2025. All existing users will be eligible to receive this update with no charge. Version 2.5.5.0 includes some updates as follows;
  1. Minor graphical change on settings screen when at 100% display size making settings clearer
  2. Addition of the Indian English offline Natural Voices (Neerja and Prabhat)
  3. Updated voice installation.

• Updated to Version 2.5.4 on 7th February 2025. All existing users will be able to update through the Manual “check for updates” function in Readable triple dot menu item. Or we can provide the latest download also. Version 2.5.4 includes some major additions as follows.

  1. Addition of Ambient Balance function. Readable includes a selection of sensory ambient sounds, to help with focus. These can be selected on the new Ambient tab in Readable Settings. We have engineered the Readable audio controls so that Readable can speak text content with the chosen voices, and the ambient sound is reduced whilst text speaking happens. The user can set the ambient sound levels and also the level whilst text to speech is happening.

  2. The Readable Microphone button (on the main toolbar) now links to the recent Windows 11 Voice Access offline speech dictation tool. Voice Access requires Windows 11 22H2 or later. On a PC prior to 22H2 the Readable Microphone button takes the user to Windows speech settings. We find Voice Access to be a highly accurate and responsive, offline speech dictation/voice typing tool. It also contains many PC voice commands including the mouse grid.

  3.Readable Settings> Speech now includes a “Voice Echo” option. When selected, Readable will echo any phrase dictated into your PC. This allows you to confirm the accuracy of the recognised text, and is a method for increasing confidence using speech dictation. The Voice Echo function is tested with Windows 11 Voice Access and Dragon Pro. It may well work with other speech dictation tools.

  4.Readable now provides additional text to speech support for Adobe Acrobat Reader. When Readable is running, and a PDF is opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader, an accessibility check will be quickly performed. Then accessible text under the mouse will be spoken by Readable, when pressing the CTRL key to start speech. Also, the Readable “select text with the mouse” will speak. All speech is using the new Natural Voices, and the Readable underline highlight will function at a block/paragraph level. Work continues to improve accessibility to Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader with Readable.

  5. Since Readable V2, there is an option to connect to the Microsoft Natural Voices in the cloud. This is activated through the “Readable Editor” program. There are over 400 voices, so the list is long. Readable V2.5.4 has an updated Voice Settings panel (Settings>Voice) that groups the voices into the three; Offline voices, Multilingual Online Voices and Single language “Cloud online” voices. The online voices are grouped into language, with the language of the Windows operating system listed first. For example, on an English Windows PC, the English voices will feature at the top of the “Cloud online”. We continue to offer the Natural Voice online voice access as an experimental feature, to offer many more dialects and voices.

  6. Minor update – Readable Settings screen now follows the PC accessibility>Text size setting (e.g.150%).

  See the full updated Readable Help file online for full details.

  Here are the videos demonstrating the new additions to Readable V2.5

• Updated to Version 2.0.2 on 5th November 2024 with the following minor updates.
  1. Homophone button text label updated
  2. CTRL+Shift key press when hover mouse cursor over a word offers different dictionary option (top right icon). Now opens the Microsoft Windows web dictionary lists.
  3. Microsoft Cloud Natural voices experimental feature updated. If Microsoft Natural voices from the cloud are activated (Using Readable Editor tool), the Readable voice settings list will show voices in the following order – Firstly the locally installed voices (all types), then Microsoft Cloud voices for the locale of the PC (e.g. UK English), then the “Multilingual” Microsoft Natural voices, then other languages provided Microsoft Natural cloud voices.

• NOW AT VERSION 2 DOWNLOAD.

  Updated to Version 2.0.1 which now includes 5 Microsoft Natural Voices within the installer, and also includes the Power OCR inside the installer, thereby not requiring the Microsoft Power Toys dependency to be installed. There is still the option to download and install 3 Vocalizer voices, which are now quietly installed (shows progress bar) and skips if already installed. Sensory PDF Reader is also updated to solve a speak on hover issue.

• V1.0.16.1 release contains small updates to the includes Sensory PDF (adds CTRL+Move setting), Sensory Tint and Sensory Ruler. Sensory Readable now includes localised user interface when installed on non English Windows PC. Sensory Readable User Interface prompt changes from English (mostly in Settings) will be seen for the following languages if set as Windows primary language; Danish, German,Finnish, French, Hindi, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian Bokmal, Norwegian Nynorsk, Polish, Spanish, Swedish, Chinese (Cantonese). Links to online Help File now shown automatic translation updates of the Help File pages for a chosen language.

• Updated to v1.0.15 release with minor changes pls two new features;
  1. Speak under mouse can be controlled by pressing button 4 or 5 on a multi button mouse
  2. Added in Sensory Markers tool into the Readable Suite installer

• Updated to v1.0.14. Minor updates.

• Updated to v1.0.12. Now includes SensoryPDF update to v1.0.5 with new underline highlight in Sensory PDF Reader. Minor fixes to Readable. Removal of automatic updater, replaced with a manual request updater. Sensory Ruler now tracks the cursor to scroll content inside the ruler.

• Readable Suite updated with new PDF Reader v1.0.4, which adds underline-highlight to the speech settings.

• Zip file now includes Readable for Windows, Sensory Tint, Sensory Ruler, Sensory PDF Reader, Sensory PDF Convert within one installer. Also the option from the installer to download 3 up to Vocalizer voice downloads (UK english Daniel, Serena,Fiona)Add more Vocalizer voices by downloading individually from the voices list.

  Readable for Windows updated to build 9 (1.0.9). On installation, Readable now identifies more Microsoft Voices present (perhaps non English languages, or more voices within a language) as an option to use. For example, if a Windows PC has download the Microsoft Ravi English voice, Readable will offer that voice.

• changes since last Readable release of 1.0.3
  Tidy up homophones list.
  Readable Editor added – for pronunciation editing. Run Readable Editor direct from Windows search box.
  Play Speech button responds immediately after closing Readable settings.
  Make About Box topmost.
  Added mp3 extension to all Save to MP3 dialogue boxes.

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