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Searching for the best read-aloud software

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momonan:
Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions.  I've settled on TextAloud (asking Mike to read to me once in a while is working out -- and is excellent for help with proofreading).

I do have one other question, if you're still with me on this:

If I were to purchase a reader in one of the languages that have special characters (say, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese), does the voice read from text written in those characters, or is a transliteration to something phonetic necessary.

For example, if I wished to have a paragraph from a newspaper written in Chinese read to me, could I take the paragraph directly from a Chinese newspaper?

BigJim:
I don't know the answer to your question. But I have always found the TextAloud people to be super responsive to questions and problems.

BTW: You're right! The proofreading feature in TextAloud is incredibly useful. It's amazing how many contextual errors one can make that don't trip the spell checker.

muntealb:
No transliteration is necessary. But you can check this for yourself by inputting text in the languages you are interested in. Try the following links :

http://www.nuance.com/realspeak/demo/ (free registration required)

http://demo.acapela-group.com/

On a side note, Balabolka also has spellchecking capabilities in no less than 23 languages (the free dictionaries must be downloaded separately from the site).

Dude Spell:
I tested some (TextAloud included) but I finally stick to Balabolka.  :-*
Easy to insert new pronunciation, easy to put it to work, lightweight and free. No more searching for me.  :Thmbsup:

DocSavage:
We have a project in progress using OmniPage (Nuance) & read this thread with interest. :Thmbsup:

* We would like to add voices, but don't know where to find them.

* Is there a compatibility problem using specific programs with voices purchased outside?

* If we
purchase voices, do the read-aloud programs automatically see them, like fonts in word processors?
dk

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