Balabolka

Balabolka is a classic free desktop text-to-speech software for the Windows platform, with over a decade of continuous updates since its initial release. It utilizes Windows’ built-in SAPI (Speech API) speech engines as well as various third-party TTS engines (such as Microsoft Speech Platform, eSpeak, etc.), unifying all installed voice resources on the computer into a one-stop reading and audio conversion service. Thanks to its local operation design, Balabolka fully supports offline use — no internet connection required for any operation.

As a powerful desktop TTS tool, Balabolka supports importing and reading various text formats including TXT, DOC, PDF, EPUB, and HTML, and offers batch file conversion — users can convert multiple documents into common audio formats such as MP3, WAV, OGG, and WMA at once. The software includes rich adjustment options including speed, pitch, volume, and custom pronunciation dictionaries, meeting fine-grained needs across different scenarios. Supported voice languages include Chinese, English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, and more.

Balabolka also integrates practical text processing tools such as clipboard monitoring reading, text extraction, regex replacement, and sentence splitting, further expanding its application scope. The software offers both installer and portable versions — the portable version can run directly from a USB drive without leaving traces on the system. Balabolka’s main limitation is that it only supports the Windows platform, and its voice quality heavily depends on the speech engines installed in the system — the default Microsoft voices lag behind current AI-driven TTS services in naturalness. However, for users seeking offline, free, highly customizable speech synthesis software, it remains one of the best choices.