Text to Voice

'Text to Voice' or 'Text to Speech' is one of the coolest add-ons. It gives Firefox the power of speech. Select text, click the button on the bottom right and this add-on speaks the selected text for you. Isn't it brilliant? Audio is downloadable.

SetUp Text to Speech Shortcut

Text to Speech is great if you want to get some online reading done but can’t be seated at you computer for whatever reason. Moreover, the new default voice included with Leopard, Alex, is a huge improvement over Tiger’s default voice.

Text to Speech can be found in the Services menu in Safari. To invoke it, highlight some text and select “Start Speaking.” If you use the feature with any regularity, though, digging through the Services menu can become a tedious process. Luckily, Leopard makes it easy to set up a keyboard shortcut to access Text to Speech. Open System Preferences and select Speech. Check the “Speak selected text when the key is pressed” and then press “Set Key” to add your shortcut (I use Control + Option + K). Alex is now ready to read any page in Safari.

Text to Voice

Windows includes a text-to-speech program called Narrator which reads aloud text on the screen as well as buttons, menus, file names, and even keystrokes. This can be helpful for people who don't see the screen or who have difficulty seeing the screen and find text-to-speech useful.

To use text to speech, make sure your computer has a functioning sound card, your language installed, and that your computer meets the basic requirements. For more information, see the Windows Help topic.

Keyboard actions:
1. To open the Ease of Access Center press Windows logo key +U. 2. Under Explore all settings select Use the computer without a display by pressing TAB, then ENTER. 3. Under Hear text read aloud select Set up Text to Speech by pressing ALT+O. 4. On the Text to Speech tab, under Voice selection select A voice from the list of installed voices, by pressing the arrow keys. 5. Preview your voice selection by selecting Preview Voice by pressing ALT+P. 6. Choose a voice speed from Slow to Fast by selecting, Voice speed by pressing ALT+C, then the arrow keys 7. Preview the voice speed by selecting, Preview Voice by pressing ALT+P 8. Save your selections and close the window, Select OK by pressing TAB, then ENTER.

Opera Voice Feature : Talk to Your Web Browser

I came across this useful Opera web browser feature today. The Opera Voice feature allows the user to control the interface by talking and to have documents read aloud.

You can enable Opera Voice from “Tools” > “Preferences” > “Advanced” > “Voice” and install the voice libraries. Voice is currently offered in English and works on Windows 2000 and XP. A headset with a microphone is required to use Voice.

Highlighting any text, hold the Voice button, and saying “Opera speak” and Opera will read any selected text to you. For a list of voice commands, click on the voice button and say “Opera voice commands”. Now you can use voice commands to have an e-mail or other document read to you easily. You can custmomize Opera with Voice and change the way the browser handles voice input, and you can add your own voice commands in the same way that you can add keyboard shortcuts and mouse gestures. You can now make your own voice interactive pages a few additions to XHTML to allow Opera to speak and listen.

Now that is a cool Opera feature. I can now replace my other text to speech softwares which I use often when I want the talking computer to convert the text to speech and read typed text. It is also useful for the visually disabled internet users and provides web accessibility to them. Get Opera.