Hi everybody. I hesitated to post about this earlier because I
needed to be sure it is on topic for this list. It seems to be, and
I think some of you may find this to be both useful and fun for
everyone here. I think that our validaters might find this helpful too.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I prefer to read Bookshare books
in the html format. While reading them in Internet Explorer works
pretty well, I found that it had some shortcomings like the inability
to mark my place if I needed to close that window and the fact that
Jaws would stop reading my book if I had to do something in another
window. So I went searching for a better way to read and found it
after some trial and error.
I discovered a program that could do both of the things I wanted and
that supports lots of different sapi voices. It's called Text
Aloud. It can read web pages, text files, emails, and just about any
text you can select in things like Word documents. Once I load my
book into Text Aloud and tell it to start speaking, it reads to me
even while I do things like tell my brother to quit messaging me at 3
in the morning and downloading files from an FTP server. It's like
having an audiobook playing, only its reading text. It does not
alter or convert the Bookshare html file in any way. I have the AT&T
Natural Voice named Crystal, and she sounds so clear that my mother
can understand computer speech for the first time ever! <grin>
Text Aloud supports bookmarks and makes navigating in files as simple
as using Wordpad. I am impressed with the editing features it has
since it's primary function is to serve as a reader.
I found 2 bonuses with Text Aloud beyond what I was looking
for. First, the cursor follows along as text is read. That makes
proofreading a breeze because you can pause speech at that point and
fix the error. It has powerful find and replace features, so it
makes changing cornpany to company an easy task. I think this could
be helpful to our members who have learning disabilities since they
can see words as they are spoken.
Finally, Text Aloud can use a special accelerated mode and record
your text into an mp3 or wma file that you can move onto your mp3
player. I have it read some web sites I like into mp3 files and put
those on my player before I head out. It sure beats sitting in a
waiting room with a rack of magazines I can't see. I have put
documents I have scanned onto my player this way so I could read them
while I'm traveling.
If you want to try Text Aloud for yourself, you can go to
http://www.nextup.com . Their prices are quite reasonable, and they
seem to be good people too. They provide some free voices for the
program, or you can buy some really nice ones very affordably. BTW,
I should point out that it may be a violation of the Bookshare user
agreement to record Bookshare titles to mp3 files for your player
since mp3 isn't a specialized format. Additionally, neither I nor
Bookshare has any legal or financial ties to nextup.com and this is
just my personal opinion.
Monica Visit my blog at: http://plumlipstick.livejournal.com
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