Weak player controls and consistency – ClaroPDF Pro – Text to Speech Review

Been using the free version and paid version of this program the last three months of this term as a student in a healthcare program - I upgraded to the paid version hoping for better stability (free version kept freezing entirely and have to restart program), settings, and voice options but really I have not noticed any great value and regret spending the money. It doesn’t freeze up at least. You also get a few more voice options of which still don’t sound that great (Tessa English (South Africa) has been the best so far and is one of the free voices). It also seems that I can adjust the readback speed in the paid version while in the free version when you adjust the speed it just goes back to where it was originally. Having a slider is really frustrating when trying to make slight adjustments. Having a feature to type exactly how many words per minute I want as well would be a great addition! - I’ve selected some of the pay for voices and getting to listen to them more than just for a short sentence I’m realizing I don’t like them but have not figured out how to return them so I can maybe select some thing else. - There’s no pause feature. Only start and stop. So if it stops you have to try and figure out where you left off last. - The reader will stop if you tilt your phone and the screen orientation changes. So you have to lock orientation. If you open up any other page or even the settings screen to lock orientation on an iPhone it will stop. Enabling “read in background” setting helps but it still is finicky. - There are two features both labeled as “speak on tap” under controls. I’m guessing the second one is supposed to be stop on tap and disabled it because it was obnoxious that anytime you even accidentally touched the screen it’ll stop and you have to find your spot again. - It stalls out. Even the paid version will just stop reading without reason. Of course, then you have look at your phone to try and figure out where you were which is not easy. - Trying to get the reader to start where you want on tap can be frustrating. Sometimes I have to tap a spot a few times before it’ll get the idea. In the meantime, either nothing will happen or it’ll start trying to highlight an area instead. - Sometimes it will get mixed up in what it’s reading and sound like gibberish or skip around if there is a graphic in the PDF. I have to stop it and skip ahead past the part it can’t comprehend. - When reading with highlight so you can follow along, It’ll jump the section it’s reading to the top which will be hiding underneath the menu bar so you can’t see it. When you drag the page down so you can follow, it’ll jump back to the top again at the next sentence hiding it again. Of course when I tap the screen to try and make the menu bar go away, then that causes it to stop and then I have to try and find my spot again. - It would be nice when looking in my folders to select a file that it would display the entire file name if you hover over it. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from another if they’re all labeled similarly in a sequence and you can only see the first couple words at the beginning and at the end. I hope this feedback helps and that there are improvements made in future versions. I would request a refund and go back to the free version but the freezing up thing is very frustrating. Makes one wonder if that’s on purpose so that people will upgrade to the paid version?
Review by Tiny but fierce on ClaroPDF Pro – Text to Speech.