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Let Your Ears Do the Reading By Bruce Atchison
Many text-to-speech (TTS) programs are inexpensive, have almost-human voices, and are designed for sighted people to operate. In the past, writers read their work aloud in order to catch grammatical errors and to edit mistakes more effectively. Why not rest your eyes and let the computer read to you? Even improper word choices, which spell checkers might miss, can be spotted and corrected with the help of synthetic voice software.
One of these inexpensive Windows-based software packages, and one of the best as far as voice quality goes, is Fonix's iSpeak. It can be purchased through the company’s website. Not only does this program read text from the clipboard, highlighted portions, and from files, but it can create MP3 versions of the text. This is useful for listening to your writing on an MP3 player while away from the computer, perhaps on a long bus trip or while jogging.
ReadPlease offers a number of voices to choose from and it highlights the words or sentences being spoken. RealSpeak can speak in 21 different languages, plus this software works on Linux as well as Windows operating systems. TextAloud also makes MP3 versions of text files, and is inexpensive too. If you want to make use of an old PC, HELP Read is free and runs on Windows 3.1.
Unfortunately there aren't many Mac TTS programs. outSpoken won't work on Mac OS X and is not supported by ALVA Access Group but it still can be obtained for use with earlier versions of OS; e-mail info@enablemart.com to learn more. Mac OS X, Windows 2000, and Windows XP have built-in TTS programs, making it even more convenient to hear your writing.
These programs are not screen readers, designed to verbalize everything on the monitor. People with extremely low vision or none at all need to use software packages like Window-Eyes, JAWS, or HAL. These programs are in the $1,000 to $2,000 range but are a boon for computer users who can't see the screen. The new release of Mac OS X, Tiger, has a built-in screen reader called VoiceOver.
Speech-to-text (SST) programs are a great help to writers who can't type, have conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome, or who express themselves more freely by talking. IBM ViaVoice and Dragon NaturallySpeaking are two of the best in this category. There's a ViaVoice version for Mac users, too. Another nice thing about these programs is that they have demo versions, allowing people to decide if the full program is worth buying. Some demos are full working versions which run for a specific amount of time while others have built-in limitations. Either way, this gives writers a chance to use and intelligently choose suitable software for their needs.
Writing has come far from the days of parchment and quill. New ways of processing the written word keep being invented. The computer has revolutionized writing as much, or more than, the printing press. Text-to-speech and speech-to-text programs empower writers to produce more work and do it more effectively. Who knows? Someday we might be able to just think the words onto the screen.
Bruce Atchison
not only writes articles but composes electronic music. Fifteen of his tunes can
be downloaded for free from the
http://gideon.www2.50megs.com/music/iprices.html website. Bruce lives in
Radway, Alberta, Canada with his house rabbits Neutrino and Gideon.
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