Features
of Textaloud
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- Sit
back and relax while your PC reads to you
- Save
text to MP3 for portable audio players
- Proofread
your own writing
- Listen
to that report while you're on the treadmill
- Find
help for someone with a reading disability
-
Create messages for your answering machine
- Reduce
eye strain from too much reading
- Listen
to information while you work on something else
- Take
some reading along for your daily walk or run
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- Turn
your iPod into a tax write-off
- Listen
to an eBook during your commute
- Study
English as a Second Language
- Help
a senior citizen or someone with low vision
- Add
some spice to your PowerPoint presentations
- Find
a great new tool to study for exams
- Listen
to text read in other languages
- Amuse
your kids by letting your PC read stories to them
- Create
audio files for computer games
- Prepare
for a big speech by hearing your words read aloud
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Advance
Features of Textaloud
TextAloud
2.0 has a new look. The biggest difference is shown in Multi-Article
Mode.
Only a single
article is shown at a time, and the a dropdown list that shows
titles of all articles and allows article switching is at the
top of the window.
This makes
the interface cleaner, and also corrects TextAloud 1.x problem
that limited max number of articles to 20-40. Number of articles
should be virtually unlimited.
There are also new toolbar options to allow you to change the
size of the toolbar icons and choose whether you want the toolbar
to have captions or not.
The new version of our screen reader software supports skins.
Skins allow you to easily change the color scheme and look of
the TextAloud window. Do View->Skins on the main menu. The download
has 5 skins included, with links to download more.
Advanced
Article Font Controls
Via
Options->Article Font and Colors, you can now not only control
font size, but font and window colors of both normal text and
highlighted text.
Voice/Pitch
Change on main window
You’ll notice that on the main window of our screen reader there
is now a speed control slider visible (as well as pitch slider
on voices that support it). This allows you to make adjustments
to the currently selected voice even while speaking is underway.
These adjustments are also available on the Edit menu with shortcut
keys.
Options/Preferences
moved to Options Menu
TextAloud 1.X had several options displayed on the main menu,
including the familiar Clipboard, Voices/Engines, File Options,
and Misc. Options TABs on the TextAloud main window. This was
ugly, and caused sight-impaired users a great deal of trouble.
All of these settings have been moved off to Options->TextAloud
Options, and Options, Voice and File Options.
Support
for opening more file types
TextAloud 1.x would only open .txt files from File->Open.
TextAloud 2.0 can now directly open text files (.txt), Rich Text
Files (.rtf), Microsoft Word Files (.doc), local HTML Files, and
local PDF Files (.pdf).
Batch File
Conversion
Available
under File->Batch File Converter, this utility makes it simple
to convert a large number of files containing text to audio files.
Support for
voice changes within a single article
When you set our screen reader to use SAPI5 Only under Voice and
File Options, you are now able to change voices within a single
text article. The right-click menu contains a new entry, Insert
Voice Change.
Proofreading
Hotkey
To make
proofreading documents and emails easier, we’ve created a new
hotkey for proofreading. This can be set under Options->Hotkey
Setup. Once created, you can be working in another program (for
example an email you are composing or a document you are writing),
you highlight a paragraph or two of text that you want to listen
to, and then hit your proofread hotkey combination. A window will
open, showing the text highlighted as it is spoken. You can adjust
the voice as desired on this window. If you notice a mistake as
the text is spoken, simply click anywhere on this window and speaking
stops and the window closes, returning you to your document to
make the correction. This offers a quicker, simpler way of proofreading
without having to interact with TextAlouds main window.
Bookmarks
We’ve added bookmark functionality on the Edit menu, allowing
you to set bookmarks within articles, and move to them with menu
entries.
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