Have a Medicine Leaflet Read Aloud on iPhone

Q: Can iPhone read text from the camera out loud?

Yes, with an app like TTS: Scan, Camera, check the text, Use This Text, Speak. The recognition and the voice both run on the device.

Leaflets are the worst case for tired eyes: thin paper, tiny type, folded six times, printed on both sides. The phone does not care how small the letters are as long as they are sharp in the photo.

Steps, one section at a time

Unfold the leaflet on a table, under a ceiling light rather than a desk lamp (the paper is shiny and a lamp makes a white patch).
In TTS, tap Scan, then Camera. Hold the phone straight above the section you need, close enough that it fills the frame.
Wait for Recognizing text…. The preview shows one recognised line per line.
Read the preview against the paper, slowly, at least the numbers. If a line is missing or garbled, tap Retake.
Tap Use This Text. You can fix a wrong word in the box by hand.
In Voice, pick a voice in the leaflet's language, set Speed to 0.75x, and tap Speak. Pause and Resume hold your place.

Why one section? The usual leaflet runs to several thousand characters across two sides, and Scan reads one photo at a time. Use This Text also replaces what is already in the box, so scanning side two wipes side one.

The main limitation here: pointing the camera at the whole sheet and listening does not work. With type this small a whole-sheet photo would not read well anyway.

Where the recognition goes wrong

Tables of doses by age or weight: columns can come out in the wrong order. Photograph one column at a time.
Fold creases across a line, which can split or skip a word.
Bold drug names in capitals next to normal text: usually fine, but check the spelling.
Leaflets printed in two languages side by side: shoot only the column you need, or the voice reads both.

The photo never leaves the phone. Recognition is done on the device by Apple's own text recognition, and it works with no signal, which is handy at a pharmacy counter in a basement.

Slower, and again

Speed goes from 0.50x to 2.00x in steps of 0.05; 1.00x is the normal iOS speaking rate. For drug names and doses, 0.75x is worth trying. It resets to 1.00x every time you open the app, so set it again.

To hear a section several times, save it as audio once with the tray-with-arrow icon and play the file in the player as often as you like. Pressing Stop and then Speak starts from the top and counts the characters again.

Worked example: how far the free characters go

Free plan: 1,000 characters a day, plus 500 per rewarded ad watched to the end
Step	Characters	Left today
Start of the day		1,000
Saved the 640-character "How to take" section as audio	-640	360
Played that saved file five times	0	360
Tried Speak on the 1,380-character "Possible side effects" section	refused	360
Watched 3 rewarded ads (2 are not enough: 360 + 1,000 = 1,360)	+1,500	1,860
Speak on the side effects section	-1,380	480

So a free account handles the dosage part of a leaflet comfortably and the long side-effects list with some ads. Someone who reads every leaflet in the house is the person PRO is for: it removes the daily limit and the ads, and nothing else.

Before you install

TTS reads printed text. Handwritten pharmacy notes come out poorly or not at all, and if the photo has no readable text you get No text found in image. It is free to download, the scanner is free, and the camera permission is asked only the first time you tap Camera.

Questions and answers

Can iPhone read text from the camera out loud?

Yes, with an app like TTS: Scan, Camera, check the text, Use This Text, Speak. The recognition and the voice both run on the device.

How do I read small print with my iPhone?

To hear it, photograph a small area so the text fills the frame and let TTS read it. To see it bigger instead, the Magnifier built into iOS is the tool; TTS does not enlarge text.

Can it read a prescription label on a box or bottle?

Flat printed labels work; curved bottle labels are harder because the edges bend away from the camera. Shoot the part with the instructions straight on, and check the dose against the label itself.

Does it work in other languages?

Recognition detects the language automatically. Choose a voice in that language in Voice before Speak, otherwise the words are read with the wrong accent.

How to take a picture of text and have it read aloud · TTS

How can I have a medicine leaflet read aloud to me?