ZoomText Magnifier/Reader

xFont Magnification

xFont technology displays high-definition text that’s easy to read at all magnification levels. Smooth, bold and condense settings allow you to fine-tune the thickness and spacing of text for added legibility.

With other screen magnifiers, the clarity of text is degraded in the magnified view. As a result, many fonts (text characters) are difficult to read, including small fonts, serif and italic fonts, and cursive fonts.

With ZoomText’s revolutionary ‘xFont’ technology, you’ll see amazingly clear text at all magnification levels. All types and sizes of text are displayed with high-definition clarity, in all of your applications. Once you’ve seen xFont, no other screen magnifier will do.

Standard Magnification
image of standard magnification of text
xFont Magnification
Image of text with xFont Magnification

Support for Touch Screen Devices

ZoomText 10.1 features support for touch screen devices including tablets, laptops and desktop monitors. ZoomText follows along as you tap, drag and swipe your way through all of your applications. And you can instantly access key ZoomText features using the ZoomText Touch Icon and gestures. Note: Requires a 5-point or greater multi-touch device.

Exclusive to ZoomText 10.1 for Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Image of a touch screen devise with ZoomText

Reads aloud in natural sounding voices

ImageReader comes with premium male and female voices for reading captured text. English-Only versions of ImageReader come with NeoSpeech English voices, while the new Multilingual Edition comes with NeoSpeech English voices plus the new library of “ZoomText Voices”. You will have over 70 premium-quality voices for the most commonly spoken languages and dialects from around the world to choose from.

Complete Screen Reading

Automatically speaks all program controls, including menus, dialogs, list views and messages. Three verbosity levels give you complete control over the amount of information spoken.

ZoomText’s powerful screen reading options let you hear what you are doing. As you type text, use the mouse and navigate through your applications, ZoomText narrates and confirms each of your actions. By adjusting ZoomText’s echo settings, ZoomText can speak as little or as much as you want.

Typing Echo Typing Echo allows you to hear the keys and words that you type. You can choose to have individual keys, words, or both spoken. Whatever your choice, you’ll be able to type with greater speed and accuracy.

Mouse Echo Mouse Echo automatically reads text beneath the mouse pointer. As you move the pointer across the screen, single words or complete lines of text are echoed. Mouse echo is great for exploring the layout of your desktop and applications, or for spot reading in documents, web pages and email.

Program Echo speaks window titles, menus, dialogs, list views, and all other program controls as you navigate and use your applications. As each window or control becomes active, program echo announces its name and description, so you always know where you are and what choices are available. Program echo is your personal navigation system.

Verbosity allows you to adjust the amount of information spoken by the program echo feature. Three verbosity levels – Beginner, Intermediate and Expert – allow you to quickly increase or decrease the verbosity. Beginner verbosity provides more information, while Expert verbosity provides less information. Each of these verbosity levels can be fully customized according to your personal needs.

ZoomText Magnifier Features

Includes all of the features of ZoomText Magnifier

‘NeoSpeech’ Synthesizer Voices

NeoSpeech provides human-sounding male and female voices that are closer to the real thing than ever before (English only). ZoomText also includes classic TruVoice and Microsoft speech synthesizers.

ZoomText provides a library of built-in speech synthesizers, providing a variety of male and female voices to choose from. The impressive ZoomText Voices provide human-sounding voices that are closer to the real thing than ever before.

Click below to hear samples of Paul and Kate:

English, United States, Paul

English, United States, Kate

Automatic Document Reading

ZoomText’s AppReader automatically reads documents, web pages and email within the parent application. ZoomText’s DocReader reads documents in a special environment where text is reformatted for easier viewing.

ZoomText offers a variety of tools for quick and easy reading of documents, web pages and email. Each of these tools has unique characteristics that lend themselves to particular reading tasks.

AppReader

AppReader reads documents, web pages and email, within the parent application. As you enter and exit AppReader your view of the document does not change, providing quick and seamless transitions between document editing and reading. AppReader can automatically read through the entire document, or you can manually read by word, line, sentence or paragraph. As reading occurs, each spoken word is highlighted. AppReader settings allow you to customize the appearance of word highlighting, including the highlight shape, size, color and transparency level.

Using AppReader in Firefox

Using AppReader in Firefox

DocReader

DocReader reads documents, web pages and email, in a special environment where text is reformatted for easier viewing. Text is presented in a single line (Ticker) or wrapped lines (Prompter), with your choice of fonts, colors, word highlighting, and magnification level. DocReader can automatically read through an entire document, or you can manually read by word, line, sentence or paragraph. As reading occurs, each spoken word is highlighted. The DocReader screen occupies the entire display with a toolbar at the top of the screen and the document text below it. The document text is formatted and displayed according to the current DocReader settings.

DocReader Ticker Mode
image of DocReader Ticker Mode

DocReader Prompter Mode

ZoomText Recorder

The ZoomText Recorder allows you to turn text from documents, webpages, email, etc. into audio recordings that you can transfer to on your mobile device and listen to at your convenience. Recordings can be saved directly to a ZoomText Recorder playlist in iTunes or Windows Media Player and automatically synced to your mobile device. Each recording is created using your choice of ZoomText voices or any other voices available on your system.

Watch the video of ZoomText Recorder in action

Key benefits and advantages

Convert documents and other text into recordings that you can put on your mobile device
Save recordings directly to iTunes, Windows Media Player or any folder location
Listen to your recordings at your convenience—at or away from your computer
Simple recording process
Continue performing other tasks while ZoomText records in the background

Picture of the ZoomText Recorder dialog box

Image of ZoomText Recorder dialog box

FAQs

While audio file formats does ZoomText Recorder support?

Recordings to iTunes – MP3
Recordings to Windows Media Player – WMA
Recordings to file – WMA, WAV

What mobile devices can I transfer ZoomText recordings to?

Any device that supports MP3, WMA and/or WAV audio files, including Apple mobile devices (iPod, iPhone and iPad), the Victor Reader Stream, Droid based devices and dedicated MP3 players.

Is there a limit to the recording size?

No there’s not. Obviously entire books will take a while to complete but you can go about other work on your computer as Recorder is in process.

How long does the recording process take?

Recording time varies depending on the size of content being recorded, selected voice and recording destination. As a point of reference, it takes roughly 10-15 seconds per page of text.

ZoomText Background Reader

ZoomText’s Background Reader allows you to listen to documents, webpages, email, etc. while you simultaneously perform other tasks. You simply select the text you want to listen to and press the Background Reader hotkey, Background Reader begins reading the text while you go about other work. At any time you can pause and resume reading and skim forward and backward by word or sentence. Watch the video of Background Reader in action

Key benefits and advantages

Listen to documents and other text while simultaneously performing other tasks. For example:

Listen to what Background Reader is speaking and take notes.
Listen to what Background Reader is speaking while browsing web pages
Listen to what Background Reader is speaking while viewing corresponding

information, such as pictures and illustrations.

Listen to one article while searching for the next.
Simple to learn and use
Promotes multi-tasking for increased productivity.

Picture of the user interface

FAQs

Is there a limit to the size of document I can read?

Nope, Background Reader reads long documents just fine.

Can I choose a voice for Background Reader to use?

Background Reader will use the same voice that you’ve selected for all of ZoomText’s other reading features. To change it, just go to your Speech Settings.

Can I queue up multiple selections to be read one after another?

Not at this time, but we have added this suggestion is in the feature request list.

Reading Zones

Reading zones let you instantly see and hear selected locations in an application window. For example; your database application may display a dozen or more fields of information. In your normal work flow you may be interested in only a few of these fields. With reading zones, you can instantly see and/or hear these select fields with the press of a hotkey.

You can create up to 10 reading zones for each of your applications. As you open and switch applications, zones defined for the active application are automatically loaded and ready to use.

Full Internet Accessibility

ZoomText reads any web page, in the proper reading order. You can read automatically or manually navigate by word, line, sentence and paragraph.

Text Navigation

Navigation keys make it easy to read while creating and editing documents. With simple commands you can read by character, word, line, sentence and paragraph, even while selecting text.

Typing Echo

Each key or word that you type is automatically spoken. You can choose to have all keys spoken or only selected groups of keys.

Typing Echo allows you to hear the keys and words that you type. You can choose to have individual keys, words, or both spoken. Whatever your choice, you’ll be able to type with greater speed and accuracy.

Mouse Echo

Mouse Echo automatically reads text beneath the mouse pointer. As you move the pointer across the screen, single words or complete lines of text are echoed. Mouse echo is great for exploring the layout of your desktop and applications, or for spot reading in documents, web pages and email.

SpeakIt Tool

The SpeakIt tool allows you to read selected areas of the screen by clicking or dragging the mouse.

Special Application Support

Built-in support for popular applications – including Internet Explorer (IE 10 supported in ZoomText 10.1 for Windows 8), Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Outlook; Office 2013 is supported in ZoomText 10.1), Adobe, Firefox, OpenOffice, iTunes and Java – allow you to read and navigate your documents with 100% accuracy.

Powerful Zoom Windows

8 different zoom windows allow you to choose which part of the screen is magnified.

A zoom window displays a magnified view of the computer screen. You can think of a zoom window as a magnifying glass held in front of the screen. A zoom window only displays a portion of the screen at any one time, but by scrolling its magnified contents, you can view any area of the screen.

ZoomText provides eight zoom window types: Full, Overlay, Lens, Line and four Docked positions. Each of these windows offer a unique way of viewing what is on the screen. At any time, you can switch zoom window types to accommodate a different task or application environment.

Full Window
Image of Full Zoom Window
Overlay
Image of Overly Zoom Window
Lens
Image of Lens Window
Line
Image of Line Window
Docked Top
Image of Docked Top window
Docked Bottom
Image of Window Docked bottom
Docked Left
Image of Window Docket Left
Docked Right
Image of Window Docked Right

Enhanced Screen Colors

Innovative color controls improve screen clarity and reduce eyestrain. Special effects include color dyes, two-color modes and replacement of problem colors.
Learn more about color enhancements.

Visible Pointers and Cursors

Size and color enhancements make it easy to see the mouse pointer. Special locators make it easier to follow the mouse pointer and text cursor as they move across the screen.

Focus Enhancements

Makes it easy to locate and follow the control focus when you navigate through application menus, dialogs and other application controls.

Smooth Navigation

Navigating your applications and scrolling the view is always smooth and comfortable. Constrained mouse movement allows you to examine rows and columns, and keeps you within the active window.

Dual Monitor Support

Use two monitors to expand your magnified viewing area, or use the second monitor to share a magnified or unmagnified view of your desktop with another person or group.

ZoomText Camera

The ZoomText Camera feature allows you to use any high-definition (HD) webcam to view and magnify printed items and other objects right on your computer screen—including bills, magazines, photographs, medicine labels, craft items and more.

Application Settings

Save unique settings for each application that you use. As you switch applications, ZoomText automatically loads the desired settings.

Full Windows Logon Support (with ZoomText Logon UI)

ZoomText’s logon support provides essential magnification and screen reading features when logging into Windows.

New Smart Invert

See photos as they were meant to be seen in Internet Explorer 11. With ZoomText’s new Smart Invert feature, photos are displayed in their natural colors when ZoomText’s Invert Brightness and Invert Colors are active. No it’s not an illusion, it’s Smart Invert.

New Unified Finder Tool

Locating what you are looking for is easier than ever with the new Finder Tool. Finder lets you search and skim through documents, web pages and email to instantly find any word or phrase you are looking for. You can search through all of the text or only within specific items like headings, forms, links and images. It’s simple, you type and the Finder finds.

New Zoom to 1x

The new Zoom to 1x feature lets you instantly switch between zoomed and 1x views, without having to zoom out and zoom back in one zoom level at a time. Don’t blink or you might not see it happen.

New Command Keys

We’re shaking things up. ZoomText 11 has a new system of “Command Keys” that are easier to learn and use. The new command keys also eliminate conflicts and compatibility issues that existed in previous versions of ZoomText. Don’t worry, making the transitioning from your previous version of ZoomText is a quick and easy.

New Modern Toolbar

ZoomText has a brand new toolbar with a fresh clean look. We’ve streamlined the modernized the layout to make it easier to learn and fast and fluid to use. You can access and operate the entire toolbar with the keyboard or the mouse. Go ahead, drive it around.

Magnifier Toolbar
image of magnifier toolbar

Reader Toolbar
image of reader toolbar

New Geometric Smoothing

ZoomText now smooths the edges of text (and graphics) in places where xFont magnification can’t go. Hint… your magnified PDF documents never looked this good.

New Consolidated AppReader

We’ve made automatic reading more efficient and flexible by combining ZoomText’s legacy reading tools into one new AppReader. With the new AppReader you can read right in the target application or switch on-the-fly to the high contrast text view that’s better for visual reading. You can also spot read blocks of text by clicking and dragging the mouse. So sit back, relax your eyes, and just listen.

ZoomText Magnifier/Reader

xFont Magnification

Support for Touch Screen Devices

Reads aloud in natural sounding voices

Complete Screen Reading

ZoomText Magnifier Features

‘NeoSpeech’ Synthesizer Voices

Automatic Document Reading

AppReader

DocReader

ZoomText Recorder

Key benefits and advantages

Picture of the ZoomText Recorder dialog box

FAQs

ZoomText Background Reader

Key benefits and advantages

FAQs

Reading Zones

Full Internet Accessibility

Text Navigation

Typing Echo

Mouse Echo

SpeakIt Tool

Special Application Support

Powerful Zoom Windows

Enhanced Screen Colors

Visible Pointers and Cursors

Focus Enhancements

Smooth Navigation

Dual Monitor Support

ZoomText Camera

Application Settings

Full Windows Logon Support (with ZoomText Logon UI)

New Smart Invert

New Unified Finder Tool

New Zoom to 1x

New Command Keys

New Modern Toolbar

New Geometric Smoothing

New Consolidated AppReader

ZoomText Magnifier/Reader Requires