Is there a silver bullet for text to speach???
Does the Nusance I mean Nuance read your lips???
Does Vista's little "reader" read what it says???
Read this first before wasting hard earned cash...
If you are interested in wasting your time, sanity and hard earned cash on these "dreams," read first. First off unless you have money for an excellent computer, quad core with loads of RAM, don't waste your money on the cheaper versions. As tempted as I am with Dragon's Naturally Speaking, I know better than buy the less expensive versions. Dragon should not even sell the less expensive programs because they are false hopes and lost dreams, and lost sanity and cash. If you are attempting this journey on a IBM and not a Mac don't purchase it unless you have a quad core and don't go with cheap versions. If you still can't afford a Mac consider the $400 dollar version on a quad core. I don't know if it works even on that but I would be tempted like Adam and Eve but I know I may use several slang terms if I do. I would have to have money to burn. When I had the $200 dollar version of Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 on my computer (a duo core at 2.0 GigaHerz and 3 gigs of ram my computer could never keep up with my voice. I don't know because past the first ten words (which I could have typed accurately in a tenth the time) I got so angry I began to curse and scream at the Dragon. By the way Dragon is not a cool name in the Christian society. Nuance sounds too much like Nusanace. Unless you are a mild tempered woman with a gentle voice not like my cursed blurting's mad as ever, you might make some progress. Just know this when you start getting mad, a trait when using Dragon, the DRAGON will fight back making it harder than ever to stay sane. As tempted as I am with Dragon's $400.00 version and a good quad core, (heck I can barely afford rent) I won't try it again unless it is on a Mac. By the way if you want a good reader Mac is the only way to go. As much as I use the Adobe Reader it nearly requires one to be in a drunken stupor to understand it. Version 9 of Adobe Reader on a duo core sounds pretty good, however older versions on older machines did not sound well. Tips and techniques for using Adobe Reader:
Just as speach "can" become text, text can more easily be made speach.
Go to View on Adobe Reader. Click "View" and scroll to the bottom. Click "read out loud." You then will have to click view a second time scrolling down the bottom. You will then be prompted with five choices to make. Pick what ever choice fits you best. It is self explainitory at this point.
There are tips to using Adobe Reader. If you stop the reading you may have to close Adobe and reopen it to make the silly thing read. It has a lot of glitches as you will find out and when they get ironed out, in another version perhaps a paid one, [I can't afford it], maybe it will work. On a further note I may try Dragon's $400 version but then again I wouldn't try it unless I had a quad core with at least 4 gigs of RAM. The principle is great and I will tell you how it works if it does at all.
Natural Reader- A program that reads PDF and other text files making text to speach. I have yet to be able to get Adobe's reading program to work all that well for me. I can have PDF files read to me in Adobe but there are easier methods to having text to speach. The following link, click here, will take you to a site where you can get a good reader that far exceeds the capabilities of Adobe reader. This reader is called Natural Reader and I will be testing out the free version today. I will get back here and let you know exactly how Natural Reader performs.
