Text to Speech for PC? Why is this so difficult?

[rbk mama]

I have tried so many options, and none seem to work.  I've mostly been trying the free versions, but I figure if I can't get the free version to work well, why would I pay for the full one?  DS needs something that will read PDFs, web pages, Word documents on his computer.  I'd love to hear what others are using!  

[Heathermomster]

It’s not difficult at all. If you have a Windows machine, go to the Ease of Use settings and select the Text to Speech option. You can then set-up tts in Acrobat and Word. Tts may not work with Word 2007. A quick Internet search should help you.

 

My iPad Pro has a Tts option. I can highlight words and hit the speak option.

 

We also use the BookShare app with iOs and Android.

 

Timberly mentioned Co-Writer earlier this week. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks promising.

Edited January 20, 2018 by Heathermomster

[Timberly]

I don't know how to run my DVD player and am resistant to learning new technology. But I find CoWriter! intuitive.  It reads PDFs.  It has text to Speech and Speech to Text for Word documents, Facebook, emails, blogs...  It works with Mac or Windows.   You can take a picture of a flyer and it'll read it.  It'll help you post a comment in your online newspaper's website.  It has millions of data banks so that if you're writing on Tom Sawyer you can choose lots of data banks on that subject.  This makes it's easy for CoWriter! to make predictions in your text. If you don't know a word, click it and it will define it or give a simpler synonym.  

 

 

My DS13 is profoundly dyslexic.  He had single digit rapid auto naming, working memory, and phonemic awareness. He has a single digit processing speed.  Yet he has a gifted IQ.  He has Developmental Motor Disorder/Dysgraphia so badly, that despite years of therapies, just writing his name still results in lots of broken pencil lead. He can't use a pencil to do his Pre-Algebra.

 

 

Because of severe trouble with directionality, it took him two years of daily practice to learn to type 10 wpm. Just learning to type "F" and "J" took a year, and those are the keys with nubs.  And his name begins with one of those letters!  It's been six years now and he's up to 25-30 wpm.  Yet dyslexia gets in the way of him being able to type his thoughts.  

 

 

He's been doing Barton for four years.  He just started Level 7.  He did 14 hours a week of Barton for three years, working for 10-20 minutes at a time.  Level One about killed us both.  Once he hit Level 5, he switched to just one hour each school day.  He went from being the 9 year old that two neuro-psychs said "Not even Orton Gillingham will help this kid.", to him now reading accuratley and fluently.  He recently had a third neuropsych eval and the evaluator asked me if he could refer patients to me because he'd never seen such improvements in test scores.  Thank you Barton, Ronit Bird, Handwriting Without Tears, and Math U See.

 

 

But unless he's reading below his grade level, reading is exhausting to him.  And he certainly can't read material that is at his IQ level.

 

 

He's an extreme case and has had a rough road.  But he's resilient, a fighter, an overcomer, and a comedian.  CoWriter! is letting him FINALLY get his amazing thoughts onto paper.  He speaks and it turns it into texts. It reads tough passages so that he can work at his high IQ level. It gives him independence.  It makes him happy. 

 

 

When my son was 9, I bought Dragon for Windows. We found it too difficult for a kid with issues as severe as his.  When he was 10 I bought Dragon for Mac and for whatever reason, we had nothing but problems with the software.  But I think he might want to use it when he's in college.

 

 

My son spent maybe an hour watching the videos on this page:  http://donjohnston.com/cowriter/.  Then he started using CoWriter! on his MacAir and iPad - without any help from me.  After an hour of using CoWriter! my son asked if he could now do a live, online literature classes like his big brother. Because he loves classical literature, he has been listening to hours of it each day since he was four.  He now wants to engage with his peers to discuss books. But he couldn't do that without something like CoWriter! to make an online class possible.  I don't know if CoWriter! will work with online class platforms, but I hope so.

 

I created a free trial account and briefly saw something about $4.99/month.  But don't quote me on that, because I was distracted at the time that I glanced at that price.   

 

Edited January 21, 2018 by Timberly

[rbk mama]

It’s not difficult at all. If you have a Windows machine, go to the Ease of Use settings and select the Text to Speech option. You can then set-up tts in Acrobat and Word. Tts may not work with Word 2007. A quick Internet search should help you.

 

My iPad Pro has a Tts option. I can highlight words and hit the speak option.

 

We also use the BookShare app with iOs and Android.

 

Timberly mentioned Co-Writer earlier this week. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks promising.

 

All I can find on our computers (Windows 10) is something called Narrator, which seems pointless.  It reads everything I have no need to hear, and nothing I want it to read.  I was so excited to find a list of keyboard commands online to get Narrator to read documents, but every single one elicits the response "Command not available." 

[rbk mama]

I don't know how to run my DVD player and am resistant to learning new technology. But I find CoWriter! intuitive.  It reads PDFs.  It has text to Speech and Speech to Text for Word documents, Facebook, emails, blogs...  It works with Mac or Windows.   You can take a picture of a flyer and it'll read it.  

 

 

That sounds awesome, but I don't see that mentioned on their website - it only addresses the writing features (which are really cool).  I don't see any mention of CoWriter READING for you.  Do you have a link to that info?

[Heathermomster]

 

Timberly’s post.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/667122-cowriter-app-looks-like-a-life-changer-for-my-ds13/

Edited January 21, 2018 by Heathermomster

[rbk mama]

 

Timberly’s post.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/667122-cowriter-app-looks-like-a-life-changer-for-my-ds13/

 

So I just realized that have something that will read Word documents already, but not something for PDFs or other online text.

 

I watched the video from Timberly's post and see that it is actually Read&Write, which is one of the numerous things I've already tried - their free version, which has extremely limited functionality.  I need to hear from people who are actually using it before I spring for the full-priced version.  I've found that the demos always look so good, but the trial versions are terrible.  So then I'm hesitant to pay for the full version.

[City Mouse]

Snap N Read works pretty well. My DS has been using it for 4 years now. It doesn't do well with numbers and symbols, and small fonts, but once the size of the letters are enlarged it gets most word. It does pronounce some words incorrectly, so I would not expect a younger student, or an extremely low level reader, to use it completely independently of human assistance, but my son can usually identify when an individual word is mispronounced.

It does have OCR, so it can read PDF, web pages, online textbooks- basically anything with letters. It is still the robot, computer voice, so we don't use it for novels if at all possible.

 

When I bought it 4 yrs ago, I paid $149. This was after trying anything I could find that was free to low cost. It came on a CD, and I put a copy on a USB drive so he can use it on any computer that he happens to use.

 

Kurzweil 3000 is like the gold standard of text to speech, but it is very expensive. When I looked a few years ago it was around $3000 but it does much more that just text to speech.

[geodob]

If you just want to use it for reading?

Then something that you can do, is simply buy a Voice.

That cost between $30 to $50. 

These provide a very natural voice, and are easy to listen to.

 

These Voices are installed on the computer.  Then any speech to text software can be used, which will then use this Voice.

Such as Narrator, and any of the free programs.

 

Here's  link to some sites where you can listen to a buy a Voice:

 

https://www.cereproc.com/en/individuals

 

https://www.cepstral.com/

 

https://neospeech.com/products

 

[rbk mama]

Snap N Read works pretty well. My DS has been using it for 4 years now. It doesn't do well with numbers and symbols, and small fonts, but once the size of the letters are enlarged it gets most word. It does pronounce some words incorrectly, so I would not expect a younger student, or an extremely low level reader, to use it completely independently of human assistance, but my son can usually identify when an individual word is mispronounced.

It does have OCR, so it can read PDF, web pages, online textbooks- basically anything with letters. It is still the robot, computer voice, so we don't use it for novels if at all possible.

 

When I bought it 4 yrs ago, I paid $149. This was after trying anything I could find that was free to low cost. It came on a CD, and I put a copy on a USB drive so he can use it on any computer that he happens to use.

 

Kurzweil 3000 is like the gold standard of text to speech, but it is very expensive. When I looked a few years ago it was around $3000 but it does much more that just text to speech.

 

I'm using Snap N Read now on my computer and on DS's.  I LOVE that it can scan text in a PDF or any image.  It's a bit buggy sometimes, but overall it's the best I've found.  Thanks!  I think I learned of it from a post you made on a different thread about it.