It comes in handy for when you want to listen to a document while multitasking, sense-check that paper or article you’ve just written, or help you retain information easier if you’re an auditory learner.

Even better, however, are its uses in the real world. The best free text-to-speech software can be enormously helpful for the visually impaired, or for someone who has a condition like dyslexia that makes reading on screens tricky. It can also help overcome language barriers for people who read a language but don’t speak it, or are in the process of learning.

Loading the finished file into your smart device such as an iPhone, it enables you to leave your office and listen to an updated manuscript or a report like a podcast as you finish an errand.

If you’re looking for the best free text-to-speech software out there to help with this, then you’re in luck. We’ve rounded up our top picks for reading either individual paragraphs or whole documents aloud.

For ripping audio from videos, do check out our guide to the best YouTube to MP3 converters.

We’ve also featured the best text-to-speech software.

There are a couple of ways to use Balabolka’s free text-to-speech software: you can either copy and paste text into the program, or you can open a number of supported file formats (including DOC, PDF, and HTML) in the program directly. In terms of output, you can use SAPI 4 complete with eight different voices to choose from, SAPI 5 with two, or the Microsoft Speech Platform. Whichever route you choose, you can adjust the speech, pitch and volume of playback to create a custom voice.

In addition to reading words aloud, this free text-to-speech software can also save narrations as audio files in a range of formats including MP3 and WAV. For lengthy documents, you can create bookmarks to make it easy to jump back to a specific location and there are excellent tools on hand to help you to customize the pronunciation of words to your liking.

With all these features to make life easier when reading text on a screen isn’t an option, Balabolka is best free text-to-speech software around.

Natural Reader is a free text-to-speech tool that can be used in a couple of ways. The first option is to load documents into its library and have them read aloud from there. This is a neat way to manage multiple files, and the number of supported file types is impressive, including ebook formats. There’s also OCR, which enables you to load up a photo or scan of text, and have it read to you.

The second option takes the form of a floating toolbar. In this mode, you can highlight text in any application and use the toolbar controls to start and customize text-to-speech. This means you can very easily use the feature in your web browser, word processor and a range of other programs. There’s also a built-in browser to convert web content to speech more easily.

As the name suggests, Panopreter Basic is the best free text-to-speech software if you’re looking for one without frills. It accepts plain and rich text files, web pages and Microsoft Word documents as input, and exports the resulting sound in both WAV and MP3 format (the two files are saved in the same location, with the same name).

The default settings work well for quick tasks, but spend a little time exploring Panopreter Basic’s Settings menu and you’ll find options to change the language, destination of saved audio files, and set custom interface colors. The software can even play a piece of music once it’s finished reading – a nice touch you won’t find in other free text-to-speech software.

If you need something more advanced, a premium version of Panopreter is available. This edition offers several additional features including toolbars for Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer, the ability to highlight the section of text currently being read, and extra voices.

Developed by the University of Edinburgh, WordTalk is a toolbar add-on for Word that brings customizable text-to-speech to Microsoft Word. It works with all editions of Word and is accessible via the toolbar or ribbon, depending on which version you’re using.

The toolbar itself is certainly not the most attractive you’ll ever see, appearing to have been designed by a child. Nor are all of the buttons’ functions very clear, but thankfully there’s a help file on hand to help.

There’s no getting away from the fact that WordTalk is fairly basic, but it does support SAPI 4 and SAPI 5 voices, and these can be tweaked to your liking. The ability to just read aloud individual words, sentences or paragraphs is a particularly nice touch. You also have the option of saving narrations, and there are a number of keyboard shortcuts that allow for quick and easy access to frequently used options.

Despite its basic looks, Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader has more to offer than you might first think. You can open numerous file formats directly in the program, or just copy and paste text.

Alternatively, as long as you have the program running and the relevant option enables, Zabaware Text-to-Speech Reader can read aloud any text you copy to the clipboard – great if you want to convert words from websites to speech – as well as dialog boxes that pop up. One of the best free text-to-speech software right now, this can also convert text files to WAV format.

Unfortunately the selection of voices is limited, and the only settings you can customize are volume and speed unless you burrow deep into settings to fiddle with pronunciations. Additional voices are available for an additional fee which seems rather steep, holding it back from a higher place in our list.

An eye scanner that Boston University Medical School developed can detect molecular aging in people. The new technique provides an accurate measure of age-related damage and could, one day, play a role in routine clinical practice.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU VALUE

We all know that story of the middle-class, educated person with a decent job who has a mini “freak out” and decides to take a week or ten days (or ten months) and cut all contact with the outside world, run to some remote and obscure part of the globe, and proceed to “find themselves.”
Hell, maybe this has been you at some point. I know it’s been me in the past.
Here’s what people mean when they say they need to “find themselves”: they’re finding new values. Our identity—that is, the thing that we perceive and understand as the “self”—is the aggregation of everything we value. So when you run away to be alone somewhere, what you’re really doing is running away somewhere to re-evaluate your values.
Here’s how it usually plays out:
You are experiencing a lot of pressure and/or stress in your day-to-day life. Due to said pressure and/or stress, you feel as though you are losing control of the direction of your own life. You don’t know what you’re doing or why you’re doing it. You begin to feel as though your own desires or decisions no longer matter. Maybe you want to drink mojitos and play banjo—but the overwhelming demands of your school/job/family/partner make it so that you feel as though you’re not able to live out those desires.
This is the “self” you feel you have “lost”—a sense that you are no longer the one navigating the ship of your own existence. Rather, you are blown back and forth across the sea of life by the winds of your responsibilities—or some other deep-sounding metaphor.
By removing yourself from these pressures and/or stressors, you are able to recover a sense of control over yourself. You are, once again, in charge of your own day-to-day existence without the interference of a million external pressures.
Not only that, but by gaining separation from the turbulent forces of your day-to-day life, you are able to look at those forces from afar and have perspective on whether you actually want the life that you have. Is this who you are? Is this what you care about? You question your decisions and priorities.
You decide that there are a few things you want to change. There are things you believe you care about too much and you want to stop. There are other things that you feel you should care about more and promise to prioritize them. You are now constructing the “new you.”
You then vow to return to the “real world” and live out your new priorities, to be your “new self”—especially because you now have a bitching tan.
This whole process—whether done on a secluded island, a cruise ship, out in the woods somewhere, or at a raucous self-help seminar—is essentially just an escapade in adjusting one’s values.
You leave, get perspective on what in your life matters to you, what should matter more, what should matter less, and then (ideally) return and get on with it. By returning and changing your priorities, you change your values, and you come back “a new person.”
Values are the fundamental component of our psychological make-up and our identity. We are defined by what we choose to find important in our lives. We are defined by our prioritizations. If money matters more than anything, then that will come to define who we are. If getting laid and smoking J’s is the most important thing in our life, that will come to define who we are. And if we feel like shit about ourselves and believe we don’t deserve love, success, or intimacy, then that will also come to define who we are—through our actions, our words, and our decisions.
Any change in self is a change in the configuration of our values. When something tragic happens, it devastates us because not only do we feel sadness, but because we lose something we value. And when we lose enough of what we value, we begin to question the value of life itself. We valued our partner and now they’re gone. And that crushes us. It calls into question who we are, our value as a human, and what we know about the world. It throws us into an existential crisis, an identity crisis, because we don’t know what to believe, feel, or do anymore. So, instead, we sit at home with our new girlfriend, a.k.a., a bag of Oreos.
This change in identity composition is true for positive events as well though. When something incredible happens, we don’t just experience the joy of winning or achieving some goal, we also go through a change in valuation for ourselves—we come to see ourselves as more valuable, as more deserving. Meaning is added to the world. Our life vibrates with increased intensity. And that is what is so powerful.

WHY SOME PERSONAL VALUES ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

Before we get into exactly how to change our personal values, let’s talk about which values are healthy and which values are harmful. In my book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, I defined good and bad values in the following way:
Good values are:

• Evidence-based
• Constructive
• Controllable

Bad values are:

• Emotion-based
• Destructive
• Uncontrollable

EVIDENCE-BASED VS EMOTION-BASED VALUES

Psychological research shows that most of us, most of the time, make decisions and are inspired to action via our feelings, rather than based on knowledge or information. Psychological research also shows us that our feelings are generally self-centered, willing to give up long-term benefits for short-term gains, and are often warped and/or delusional.
People who lead their lives based on how they feel will find themselves perpetually on a treadmill, constantly needing more, more, more. And the only way to step off that treadmill is to decide that something matters more than your own feelings—that some cause, some goal, some person, is worth occasionally getting hurt for.
That “cause” is often what we refer to as our “purpose” and finding it is one of the most important endeavors we can take to enhance our health and well-being. But our purpose should be sought not merely through what feels good. It must be considered and reasoned. We must accumulate evidence supporting it. Otherwise, we’ll spend our lives chasing a mirage.

CONSTRUCTIVE VS DESTRUCTIVE VALUES

This one sounds simple, but will start to scramble your brain if you think about it enough.
We don’t want to value things that harm ourselves or others. We do want to value things that enhance ourselves and others.
Duh.
Now, determining what is actually spurring growth and what is actually harming us can get complicated. Busting your ass at the gym technically damages your body—but it also causes you to grow. Taking MDMA can actually enhance your emotional growth in some circumstances, but if you take it every weekend to numb yourself, then you’re probably causing more emotional harm than good. Having casual sex can be a means to enhance personal confidence but also a means to avoid intimacy or emotional maturity.
There’s a blurry line between growth and harm. And they often appear as two sides of the same coin. This is why what you value is often not as important as why you value it. If you value martial arts because you enjoy hurting people, then that’s a bad value. But if you value it because you are in the military and want to learn to protect yourself and others—that’s a good value. Ultimately, it’s the intention that matters most.

CONTROLLABLE VS UNCONTROLLABLE VALUES

When you value things that are outside your control, you essentially give up your life to that thing.
The most classic example of this is money. Yes, you have some control over how much money you make, but not total control. Economies collapse, companies go under, entire professions get automated away by technology. If everything you do is for the sake of money, and then tragedy strikes and all of that money is eaten up by hospital bills, you will lose much more than a loved one—you will lose your perceived purpose for living as well.
Money is a bad value because you can’t always control it. Creativity or industriousness or a strong work ethic are good values because you CAN control them–and doing them well will ultimately generate money as a side effect.
We need values we can control, otherwise our values control us. And that’s no bueno.
Some examples of good, healthy values: honesty, building something new, vulnerability, standing up for oneself, standing up for others, self-respect, curiosity, charity, humility, creativity.
Some examples of bad, unhealthy values: dominating others through manipulation or violence, fucking more men/women, feeling good all the time, always being the center of attention, not being alone, being liked by everybody, being rich for the sake of being rich, sacrificing small animals to the pagan gods.

HOW TO REINVENT YOURSELF

Below is perhaps one of the most inspiring TED Talks I’ve ever come across. It’s not filled with mind-blowing ideas. You’re not going to get huge takeaways that you can immediately run off and implement in your own life. The guy isn’t even that great of a speaker.
But what he describes is absolutely profound:
Daryl Davis is a black musician who has traveled and played blues shows all over the US south. In his career, he’s inevitably run into a number of white supremacists. And rather than fight them or argue with them, he chose to do something unexpected: he befriended them.
This might sound insane. And maybe it is. But here’s what’s more insane: he’s convinced over 200 KKK members to give up their robes.
Here’s what most people don’t get about value change: you can’t argue someone out of their values. You can’t shame them into valuing something different (shaming them actually often has the opposite effect—they double down).
Nope, value change is far more subtle than that. And perhaps without even realizing it, Daryl Davis appears to be a master at it.

STEP 1: THE VALUE MUST FAIL.

Davis intuitively understood something that almost all of us do not: values are based on experience. You cannot argue someone out of their values. You cannot threaten them to let go of their most deeply-held beliefs. That just makes them defensive and even more resistant to changing themselves. Instead, you must approach them with empathy.
The only way to change someone’s values is by presenting them with a contrary experience to their value. The KKK members held deeply racist values and instead of attacking them and approaching them as an adversary—in a way that would reflect their values back to them—Davis chose to approach them in the completely opposite way: as a friend. And that friendliness and respect caused the KKK members to call everything they knew into question.
To let go of a value, it must be contradicted through experience. Sometimes this contradiction happens by taking the value to its logical conclusion. Too much partying ultimately makes life feel empty and meaningless. Pursuing too much money ultimately brings greater stress and alienation. Too much sex gives you chafed thighs and rug burns on your knees.
Other times, a value is contradicted by the real world. Many KKK members that met Davis had never known a black person, much less one they respected. So, he simply met them and then earned their respect.

STEP 2: WE MUST HAVE THE SELF-AWARENESS TO RECOGNIZE THAT OUR VALUES HAVE FAILED.

When our values fail, it’s terrifying. There’s a grief process that takes place. Since our values constitute our identity and our understanding of who we are, losing a value feels as though we’re losing a part of ourselves.
Therefore, we resist that failure. We explain it away and deny it. We come up with rationalizations. Davis said that for months, his KKK friends would struggle to justify their friendship with him. They would say things like, “Well, you’re different Daryl,” or create elaborate justifications for why they respected him.
When our values fail, we have two knee-jerk justifications: 1) the world sucks, or 2) we suck.
Let’s say you spend your entire life chasing money. And then, in your 40s, you accumulate a good amount. But instead of diving and swimming in gold coins like Scrooge McDuck, this money doesn’t bring you happiness, it brings you more stress. You have to figure out how to invest it. You have to pay taxes on seemingly everything. Friends and family members continuously approach you looking for help or handouts.
But instead of considering that the value sucks, that maybe you should care about something more than money, most people instead blame the world around them. It’s the government’s fault because they punish wealth and success. The world is full of moochers and lazy people who just want a handout. The stock market is a racket and impossible to win.
Others blame themselves. They think, “I should be able to handle this, therefore I just need to make even more money and everything will be alright.” They get caught on a treadmill of constantly pursuing their value more and more until they become a sort of extremist.
Few people stop to consider that the value itself is at fault. That valuing money got you into this situation, therefore there’s no way it can get you out.

STEP 3: QUESTION THE VALUE AND BRAINSTORM WHAT VALUES COULD DO A BETTER JOB.

In a previous post, I described how the process of maturity is replacing low-level, material values, with higher-level, abstract values. So instead of chasing money all the time, you could chase freedom. Instead of trying to be liked by everyone, you could value developing intimacy with a few. Instead of trying to win everything, you could focus on merely giving your best effort.
These higher-level, abstract values are better because they produce better problems. If your primary value in life is how much money you have, then you will always need more money. But if your primary value is personal freedom, then you will need more money for a while, but there might be some situations where you need less money. Or, where money is completely irrelevant.
Ultimately, abstract values are values you can control. You can always control whether you’re being honest or not. You cannot control if people like you. You can always control whether you’re giving your best effort. You can’t always control if you win or not. You can always control if you’re doing something you find meaningful, you can’t always control how much you’ll get paid.

STEP 4: LIVE THE NEW VALUE.

So, here’s the catch: sitting around thinking about better values to have is nice. But nothing will solidify until you go out and embody that new value. Values are won and lost through life experience. Not through logic or feelings or even beliefs. They have to be lived and experienced to stick.
This often takes courage. To go out and live a value contrary to your old values is fucking scary. I imagine the KKK guys were terrified to spend time with a black man. It probably freaked them out when they realized they liked him and respected him. They probably avoided him and put up walls between themselves and him.
We do the same thing in our own lives all the time. It’s easy to want authentic relationships. But it’s hard to live them. It’s scary. We avoid it. We come up with excuses for why we have to wait, or we’ll do it next time. But the “next time” inevitably ends up being another failure and another pain.

STEP 5: REAP THE BENEFITS OF THE NEW VALUE.

But when you do summon the courage to live out your new values, something crazy happens: it feels good. You experience the benefits. And once you experience those benefits, not only does it become easier to continue living the new value, but it sounds insane that you didn’t do this sooner.
It’s like the high you get after a good run. Or the relief you feel after telling someone the truth. Or the liberation you feel when you stop being a racist fuck and hand over your Klan robe to a nice old black man.
Like jumping into a cold pool, the terror and shock passes and you’re left with a wonderful sense of relief, and a newer, deeper understanding of who you really are

Members of the medical fraternity insist that that the war against Covid-19 can only be won by increasing testing capacity, isolating infected individuals and equipping the healthcare staff with proper protective gear.

“We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.”

These are the words of Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation.

How to get checked

To help people who feel like they might have the symptoms, Dawn.com reached out to health officials to understand the process through which one can be tested for the virus for free.

Here’s what you need to know:

• A patient suspecting they are manifesting symptoms of coronavirus should visit a government designated public or private hospital. According to National Institute of Health (NIH) official Dr Mumtaz Ali Khan, all district headquarter hospitals and tertiary care hospitals across the country are equipped to collect samples for coronavirus.
• At the hospital, a doctor will check the patient for symptoms to determine if he or she may have coronavirus, according to NIH Executive Director Maj Gen Aamir Ikram.
• The patient will be asked a set of questions regarding their travel history as well as of those they have been in close contact with.
• If the doctor rules out suspicion of coronavirus, the patient will be sent back.
• If the doctor comes to the conclusion that the patient is manifesting symptoms, a swab of their saliva is taken and sent to one of the designated facilities that have coronavirus testing equipment. This testing will be done free of cost, said Ikram.
• Other government facilities around the country are also testing free of cost. However, some private labs are also independently testing individuals for the virus against a fee.

Facilities conducting tests for coronavirus

Sindh

• Advanced Diagnostic Centre – Karachi
• Aga Khan University Hospital – Karachi
• Chughtai Lab, Karachi
• Dow University of Health Sciences, Ojha – Karachi
• Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital – Karachi
• Ziauddin Hospital – Karachi
• Indus Hospital – Karachi
• PNS Shifa – Karachi
• SIUT – Karachi
• Drive-through testing facility – Karachi
• Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences – Khairpur
• Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences – Hyderabad

Punjab

• Provincial Public Health Reference Lab (PPHRL), PHSD
• Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital – Lahore
• Pakistan Kidney And Liver Institute – Lahore
• Nishtar Hospital – Multan
• Chughtai Testing Lab
• National Institute of Health – Islamabad
• Institute of Public Health – Lahore
• Allied hospital – Faisalabad
• Civil Hospital – Bahawalpur

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

• Khyber Medical University – Peshawar
• Hayatabad Medical Complex – Peshawar
• Ayub Teaching Hospital – Abbottabad
• Saidu Teaching Hospital – Swat
• Mufti Mehmood Memorial Teaching Hospital – DI Khan
• Rehman Medical Institute – Peshawar
• North West General Hospital – Peshawar
• Anwar lab – Peshawar

Balochistan

• Fatima Jinnah Hospital – Quetta

Azad Jammu and Kashmir

• Abbas Institute of Medical Sciences – Muzaffarabad
• Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahayan Hospital (CMH) – Rawalakot
• Divisional Headquarters Hospital – Mirpur

Gilgit Baltistan

• All district hospitals in the area are equipped to collect samples which are then sent to a lab in Gilgit or Skardu for testing

In addition to these facilities, citizens can visit their nearest public tertiary healthcare centre or district headquarter hospital for screening.

What to do if you test positive

The federal government in its guidelines to provinces said that patients showing mild symptoms of the virus would be isolated at their homes while only those requiring medical help would be treated at hospitals.

According to standard operating procedures (SOPs) issued by the federal health ministry, the move to isolate these patients at home would help “ensure control of the disease and reduce the burden on the healthcare system”.

The guidelines advise patients to limit contact with other people and maintain a distance of six feet if they do need to go out. They also advise patients to take all the necessary precautions and cleaning and disinfecting surfaces they touch.

However, patients are advised to visit hospitals if their symptoms worsen.

“You should not hide this disease at all. The sooner you get help, the safer you will be,” said Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, appealing to people — especially those who have underlying health conditions such as diabetes, heart or kidney problems — to “immediately” come to hospital as soon as they get ill.

اس کو بنانے کا طریقہ درج ذیل ہیں :

:اجزا
ادرک کے دو انچ کے ٹکڑے
چوتھائی کپ لیموں کا عرق
تین کپ پانی
شہد

تیار کرنے کا طریقہ :

ادرک کو چھل کر کدوکش کرلیں اور پھر پانچ منٹ تک پانی میں ابالیں۔
اس کے بعد اسے ٹھنڈا ہونے کے لیے رکھ دیں اور جب پانی ٹھنڈا ہوجائے تو آخر میں اس میں لیموں کے عرق اور شہد کا اضافہ کردیں۔اس مکسچر کو صبح ناشتے سے پہلے یعنی نہار منہ پینا فائدہ مند ہوتا ہے جو کہ متعدد طبی مسائل کی روک تھام یا علاج میں مددگار ثابت ہوسکتا ہے۔اس کے ساتھ ساتھ یہ نظام ہاضمہ اور میٹابولزم کو بہتر کرنے کے ساتھ ساتھ جسمانی وزن میں کمی لانے میں بھی موثر ثابت ہوتا ہے۔

نوٹ: یہ مضمون عام معلومات کی فراہمی کے لیے ہے۔ قارئین اس حوالے سے اپنے معالج سے بھی ضرور مشورہ لیں۔

The teenager’s issues started at age 14, when he went to the physician’s workplace complaining of tiredness.

The teenager was reportedly a “fussy eater,” and blood exams confirmed he had anemia and low ranges of vitamin B12, the report stated. He was handled with injections of vitamin B12 together with recommendation on the way to enhance his weight loss program. Nevertheless, by age 15, he developed listening to loss and imaginative and prescient issues, however docs could not appear to search out the trigger — outcomes from an MRI and eye examination have been regular.Over the subsequent two years, the teenager’s imaginative and prescient received progressively worse. When the boy was 17, an eye fixed take a look at confirmed that his imaginative and prescient was 20/200 in each eyes, the brink for being “legally blind” in the USA.Additional exams confirmed the teenager had developed injury to his optic nerve, the bundle of nerve fibers that connects the again of the attention to the mind. As well as, the teenager nonetheless had low ranges of vitamin B12, together with low ranges of copper, selenium and vitamin D.These deficiencies prompted docs to ask the teenager in regards to the meals he ate. “The affected person confessed that, since elementary college, he wouldn’t eat sure textures of meals,” the authors, from the College of Bristol in the UK, wrote within the report. He informed docs that the one issues he ate have been fries, chips — particularly, Pringles — white bread, processed ham slices and sausage

After ruling out different potential causes for his imaginative and prescient loss, the teenager was identified with dietary optic neuropathy, or injury to the optic nerve that outcomes from dietary deficiencies. The situation may be brought on by medicine, malabsorption of meals, poor weight loss program or alcohol abuse. “Purely dietary causes are uncommon in developed nations, the authors stated.It is recognized that the B nutritional vitamins are important for a lot of mobile reactions, and deficiencies in these nutritional vitamins can result in the buildup of poisonous byproducts of metabolism, and finally to the injury of nerve cells, in line with the College of Iowa.

Imaginative and prescient loss from dietary optic neuropathy is probably reversible if caught early. Nevertheless, by the point the teenager was identified, his imaginative and prescient loss was everlasting. What’s extra, carrying glasses wouldn’t assist the teenager’s imaginative and prescient, as a result of injury to the optic nerve can’t be corrected with lenses, stated examine lead creator Dr. Denize Atan, a advisor senior lecturer in ophthalmology at Bristol Medical College and Bristol Eye Hospital. The teenager was prescribed dietary dietary supplements, which prevented his imaginative and prescient loss from getting any worse.

The teenager was additionally referred to psychological well being companies for an consuming dysfunction. The researchers observe that the teenager’s weight loss program was extra than simply “choosy consuming” as a result of it was very restrictive and brought on a number of dietary deficiencies.A comparatively new prognosis generally known as “avoidant-restrictive meals consumption dysfunction” (beforehand generally known as “selective consuming dysfunction“) entails an absence of curiosity in meals or avoidance of meals with sure textures, colours, and so forth., with out concern to physique weight or form. The situation normally begins in childhood, and sufferers typically have a standard physique mass index (BMI), as was the case for this affected person, the authors stated.