[tourdewolf]

I use Nextup's Text Aloud, works great!
http://www.nextup.com

[tourdewolf]

I use Nextup's Text Aloud, works great!
http://www.nextup.com

[Cleisthenes]

xendula wrote: "Sounds intriguing, but:
-what is tts?!? (text to speach?)
-what does a tts program do?!?
-which programs are out there and which one is best?/easiest to use?
-what are carats (the only ones I know are the ones that go on your finger )?!?
-how do carats mess up tts voices?!?

You see, a lot of interest and a lot of questions mean you'd have to post a little guide for absolute beginners - please!!!"

xendula: yes, tts = text to speech. as the last post prior to this one mentioned, textaloud is, imho, the best around. i've tried a lot of others, both for pc & mac, but textaloud's software proved to be the best. i didn't get great performance out of textaloud's bundled voices, however, which are the standard microsoft speech voices. it is well worth the $ to buy (i think, like, $49) ATT naturalvoices. the voices of crystal and mike come with the basic att package. crystal's voice is best because mike's bass tones seem to distort at higher volumes and runs the syllables together more than crystal's. carats, i.e. the > symbol, that appears in some email text and other symbols like / should, to my listening comprehensibilities, be eliminated before creating a wav or mp3 file from the text - which is why i 'wash' the text in ms word prior to loading it in textaloud for recording. during my making of hundreds of hours of text, i've developed certain 'rules' for how washing in ms word should be done (e.g. substituting semicolons for various words and other symbols) that result in the most comprehensible mp3. if you do go so far as to use textaloud and att naturalvoices, i'd be happy to detail my 'washing rules' for you.
i subscribe to audible.com, but, although i continue to subscribe, my own custom-made audiobooks are on way better and more varied subject matter. they are especially valuable if you are a writer and want to hear how your prose sounds rather than reads.
happy listening,
cleisthenes

[xendula]

Originally Posted by Cleisthenes

carats, i.e. the > symbol, that appears in some email text and other symbols like / should, to my listening comprehensibilities, be eliminated before creating a wav or mp3 file from the text - which is why i 'wash' the text in ms word prior to loading it in textaloud for recording. during my making of hundreds of hours of text, i've developed certain 'rules' for how washing in ms word should be done (e.g. substituting semicolons for various words and other symbols) that result in the most comprehensible mp3. if you do go so far as to use textaloud and att naturalvoices, i'd be happy to detail my 'washing rules' for you.

OK, I'm downloading the demo right now. Would you share your 'laundry technique' :wink: with us? This is interesting even for people who don't care about text to speech, so it's not too far off the topic.

[Cleisthenes]

xendula:
eliminate apostrophes (this eliminates ATT Crystal from saying the word "apostrophe" without diminishing syntactic comprehension)
replace right brackets, left brackets, right parentheses, left parentheses, quotation marks, dashes, elipses and slashes with a semicolon (this inserts appropriate pauses in the tts speech)
change all II, i.e. roman numeral 2, to I;I (because Crystal elides the two roman numerals, thus making King Charles I - which she pronounces as "king charles eye" - and King Charles II - which she pronounces as "king charles eye"; thus the substitution of I;I for II causes Crystal to pronounce King Charles II as "king charles eye eye.") similarly, change all III's to I;I;I. no other roman numerals need to be altered.
also, remember the default voices on the TextAloud are of poor quality. to appreciate what it can do, it needs the ATT NaturalVoices.
cheers,
cleisthenes

[xendula]

Thanks for all the info, Cleisthenes, will play a little with it and see how I like it.

Xendula