ClaroPDF Pro – Text to Speech App Reviews

Impressive App! I was surprised it this little apps capabilities for 99 cents! Wow! After trying several tts apps, i discovered this rare gem in a sea of duds! This is the best tts app on the market! Speaks all my iBooks and PDFs seamlessly in 4 english voices, more are avail. W/ in app purchase if desired. This will turn your pages for you, speak at any rate, gives the option to auto read or read by touch, and can highlight words as it speaks in multiple colors of highlights and backgrounds. Refer to google on how to play Kindle ebooks, mine works! A steal for 99 cents! my favorite is the UK accent Serena in the auto speak and auto scroll mode! No word limits just keeps on going! WoW!

I loved this app until I updated. The update caused my app to go completely crazy! It wouldnt do the things it had previously done. Finally, I decided to backup my docs to Dropbox and deleted the app. I reinstalled it and Volila, its my favorite app again! The only reason I dont give it 5 stars is because it doesnt give you the option to arrange your docs in order or folders!

Works great. Has the option of 4 or 5 different voices, a dozen different rates of speech, with a bunch of extra settings. Love this app, highly recommended. The only part that needs tuned up is, voices are monotone and some times gets words wrong. I.e. "colonial and colonial time period" would be pronounced the same. But overall good.

I was in a bind needed to record a test for a student. Out of time found this sent a PDF of the test to my iPad and it just worked read the test to the kid, FANTASTIC!

The developers did a lot of improvements since I first got it. It is much more stable and they added a nice few features. I would still like to be able to organize my files in folders and for the notes and highlights to auto save. Everytime the app crashes I have to write all my notes again. Still, it is my favorite app and I highly recommend it.

Needs a pause button, and it needs to automatically cover the whole screen in landscape mode so i dont havr to zoom for every page. Otherwise its pretty good.

Scrolling in this app is terrible. For one, there is no full-screen mode, so the controls at the top and bottom perpetually detract from the content, and there is no smooth-scrolling, so you must view the PDFs page-by-page rather than, say, half and half. This makes its most important task--reading--difficult to do. Overall, its a good app but it is awkward to use.

Looks like an update is needed. Thanks for the review Dan.....I wont keep trying to open files...it just wont happen. Please update this now! I have students using depending on this app!

Edit 5: likely my last review. The app is working now, so they actually listen? Or were planning on updating. Crashed at the point of switching voices while listening. When the app went back to the books just died. The speed is still half of max from the voice dream, but this app is also half the price of the other one, so get what you paid for kind of app. Still works, and functions mostly as before. So, Ill return the former rating. Hope, for those that need it, that they keep improving. Edit 4: Its been a few weeks since iOS 8 update, and still no update in sight. Nova, if your students really need it, give Voice Dream Reader a try. I did some research and looks like its an independent developer, whos updated the app consistently from at least 2012, likely before. Its a bit more expensive, but looks very functional, and updates in a timely manner. Personally, something like this should be updated in a timely manner. Thats just irresponsible on the developers side. It also offers a lite version, but that stops every 300 characters or so. If you dont mind the stops, that could work. One of the better features Ive found on it was full screen option, and it also allows you to go up to 700 wpm. Which is very possible, once you get used to the reading. I was contemplating waiting for the update, but this other dev seems to be on top of their game. Edit 3: Completely useless on iOS 8. If you have iOS 8, do not purchase this app. If you have iOS 7 and need this app, dont update to iOS 8. Edit 2: update for iOS 8 needed. No longer opens files. Just stays in the original Claro pdf. Also, the speeds only show up to 240 wpm. Tried this and Connosiour, this one read better. Dont really care about the management features. Only gripe so far is the frequent page skipping. It seems like its every time the header is on the right? Which turns out to be every other page for a text book. Annoying, when I just want to let the book read, without me looking at it, but works either way. Edit: Never mind, it appears to just jump from the end I page, to the title, then move pages. Just looked like it was skipping. Another potential improvement, though, while it reads, move the position down, instead of being dead center. Harder to follow when its in horizontal view.

We rec. this app lots for our students who struggle with reading and/or writing. It is a very user friendly interface. Students can take pics of worksheets in an app like prizmo to convert the text and then open it in CLARO PDF to have it read to them and to add text via keyboard or voice! It is one of the only apps that I have found that does all of this and is stable when adding text via voice on a worksheet - i can think of one other, but it does not have FOLDERS like Claro PDF now does! YAY!!!! Can also record audio over a power point that is converted to a pdf, take notes and have the audio sync with each page of the presentation! awesome! opens doc files too!!!! Wishlist: - double tap to re-select the text tool, so you dont have to keep selecting it for each annotation - option to have larger icons for tools for those with fine motor difficulties - ability to add a blank sheet of paper for note taking all in one place - and higher quality voices with more speed control - adding a picture of a worksheet as an entire page without need to resize KEEP UP the INCREDIBLE work!!!!! Thank You Thank You Thank YOU! Karen

Ive been using this app since it first came on the market and I love it! Sometimes it is slow on my phone but a quick reset of the device usually fixes any issues. The app isnt what slows down but the iPhone its self. One thing I would like to see is the ability to change the Dropbox folder name/location instead of it always creating a folder for clario. Thanks for a great product!

This app was and IS always buggy. I dont think the developers care anymore about their reputation. Ive emailed regarding the app CRASHING! every time Ive tried to open it. All it does is it sits there and closes itself. Still NO Responses ! As you can imagined I cant use it! If theres no update in the next 30 days its going in the trash!

Nuff said. Paid for crap.

This app would be great but it need some fixes first. It crashes constantly if the file is too big and even with small files while highlighting and trying to add notes I find it crashes when I ask too much of it. If you are planing to use this app a lot for tones of reading and not taking it may not be the right choice.

I really use to love, love, love this app because of its capabilities but it has been so glitchy for the past couple of months that I loath it. Every time I try to edit a document or use notations it kicks me out of the app. This is incredibly frustrating considering that I bought the app for educational purposes and I cant even use it. Also, being that this is an app you have to purchase, you shouldnt have to buy credits to import a document or book and save it as a PDF and/or use OCR...after all, it is a PDF viewer/editor/audible reader. Why the hell did I pay for a PDF viewer/editor/audible reader app that I have to make further purchases to further utilize? Clearly it is about making more profit but for this app it makes no sense as that is what we paid for to begin with. If you want more revenue, charge more for the app. I paid nearly $10 for your bundle (the other app I find useless) so I should be able to get some use out of the thing. Also, there should be some kind of backup system or iCloud sync that allows a user to use the content in their app from either device. This app has some great features and great potential but the glitches and the paid credits for "conversion" make it not so great.

This newest edition says my PDF is an image whereas I use Adobe Acrobat Pro and my document is definitely a text-based PDF. Seems like a ploy to get me to use unnecessary credits to OCR a document thats already OCRd.