LuceVoce

Choose a voice

How to pick the voice for a book, listen before you choose, set a voice for each language, and have passages in another language read by their own voice.

Windows
Yes
Mac
Yes
iPad
Yes
iPhone
Yes
Show steps for

Tap the voice button in a book to see the voices for that book's language, listen to a few, and pick one. The voice you choose there is for that book, unless you ask for it to be used for every book in the language.

Pick a voice while reading

  1. Open a book.
  2. In the bottom bar, choose the voice button. It shows the name of the voice reading now.
  3. The voices are grouped by language, with the book's language first. Each one shows its kind, its accent and whether it is a female or male voice.
  4. To hear a voice first, choose its play button (Preview).
  5. Choose the voice's name to use it.

LuceVoce goes on reading from the same sentence with the new voice.

The voice you choose is for this book only. To use it for every book in the language, tick Use for every book in followed by the language, below the list, then choose the voice. A book with a voice of its own also offers Use the voice for followed by the language, which drops the book's own voice and goes back to the voice of its language.

Change the language a book is read in

The language decides which voices are offered, and how sentences and numbers are read. If a book is read in the wrong language, change it.

Choose the language in the This book's language row of the voice picker, or change Language in the book's Edit information…. Both change the same thing. A greyed language has no voice on this device yet: get one in Settings > Voice.

Know the kinds of voices

The label next to each voice says where it comes from:

  • KOKORO: the natural voices, by far the best, in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hindi, Japanese and Chinese. They need a one-time download. See Get the natural voices (Kokoro).
  • PIPER: natural voices too, one download per voice (30 to 120 MB). Voices for French, Italian and Spanish are offered in the voice picker, and you can add others from a file. See Piper voices and voices you add.
  • Your device's own voices, labelled WINDOWS, MAC, IPHONE or IPAD. They need no download and speak many languages, such as Romanian, but they sound mechanical. You can add more of them in your device's speech settings.

A voice that still needs its download says so in the list.

Set a voice for each language

  1. Open Settings > Voice.
  2. Default voice: the voice used when you have not chosen one for a book's language.
  3. Under Voice for each language, pick a voice next to each language you read, or Use the default voice.

Hear two languages in one book

When a book marks a passage as written in another language, such as a French reply in an English novel, that passage is read by your voice for that language, and then the book's own voice carries on. Without a voice for that language on the device, the book's voice reads it.

This works in EPUB books, web pages and articles, and Kindle books, where the book marks the language.

It is on by default. To have the book's voice read everything, turn off Read passages in another language with that language's voice in Settings > Voice.

How LuceVoce picks a voice

For each book, LuceVoce looks at the book's language and uses, in this order:

  1. The book's own voice, if you chose one and it is on this device.
  2. The voice you chose for that language.
  3. Your default voice, if it speaks that language.
  4. The first natural voice in that language.
  5. The first system voice in that language.
  6. Your default voice, reading the text as best it can.

Good to know

  • The welcome guide already set your default voice. You can change it here at any time.
  • Your device's own voices give exact word highlighting, because your system tells LuceVoce when each word is spoken.
  • On Windows, the Microsoft Zira voice is never listed. On Apple devices, the novelty voices are left out.
  • If a book was set to a voice that is not on this device, another voice reads it until that voice is there.
  • On Windows, when a book's voice is a Windows voice from another PC, the voice picker offers Open the speech settings of Windows, where Windows adds its voices.

Related

  • Get the natural voices (Kokoro)Why the natural Kokoro voices are worth the one-time download, how big it is on each device, which languages they read and where to start it.
  • Piper voices and voices you addHow to download the Piper voices LuceVoce offers for French, Italian and Spanish, and add a Piper voice of your own from a file, with its licence shown.
  • Fix how a word is pronouncedHow to teach LuceVoce to say a word, a name or an abbreviation your way, try a rule at once, and what it already does to make text easier to listen to.
  • Edit book details and coversHow to change a book's title, authors, series, tags, language and other details, look them up online if you wish, edit several books, and change a cover.

Last updated 13 November 2026